


Rangeland

by FrostbitePanda



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Australian Cattle Station, Biker Gangs, F/F, F/M, Gen, Horses, Humor, I can't believe I'm doing this, Lots Of Desert Romance To Be Sure, Our Rag-Tag Road Trip Family Works On a Cattle Station, Outback Shenanigan, People Being Dicks, Sabotage, Slow Burn, Smut, The Sisters Are Badasses, The Wives ship Max/Furiosa, farm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-04-17 07:01:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4657062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrostbitePanda/pseuds/FrostbitePanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The truth was, he was out here to kill himself. </p><p>(Furiosa finds a stray in the Outback. Modern AU in which our heroes work a cattle station.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Swagman and His Dog

She feels the prickling down her neck a second too late.

She had been crouching in the Knife Leaf, silvery foliage hiding her well enough in the long, late-afternoon shadows. He had seen her as he awoke from the fitful nap he had been taking.

She springs on him before he could do the same to her.

Rolling in the dust, they spit and snarl as they both try to pin the other down. He was a good fighter, maybe better than her. A dog comes flying from the scrub, barking madly. The man seems to be distracted by this, if only for an instant, and she uses his hesitation to throw her elbow in his ribs and he staggers back, gasping. She scrabbles to her feet, punching her knee into his face with a yell. He spits blood and gose for her again, tripping up her legs so she comes crashing back to earth, red dirt burning in her nose like smoke.

He pulls at her ankles, dragging her toward him, getting his chest over the backs of her calves. He grapples for her hand, the metal one, but she uses it to claw at the sand, dragging her legs out of his grip. She twists around so she was on her back, kicking at whatever she could reach. Before she could stand, though, her attacker flings himself on her again, powerful thighs pinning her arms down and pressing a cruel elbow at her throat.

"How did you find me?" He hisses.

"Fuck off," She growls, teeth bared, blood tanging copper on her tongue.

The man presses harder at her throat and she chokes a bit. His desert-sky eyes are burning with madness, hatred.

"I've been tracking you for days!” She snarls, finally, voice small from the pressure on her windpipe. “You're with those Citadel fucks, I know it. Setting traps, killing head."

The man flinches at her words and inexplicably, some of that rage, that madness in his face, was boiling off, leaving a blank fear in its wake.

The man looks so truly perplexed by her words, she comes to the realization that maybe her assumptions are ill-conceived.

"Get off our land,” she commands, deadly quiet.

He nods, licking his lips. "'M sorry, passing through." He says, voice quiet, mumbly. He almost looks _guilty_ , but his thighs are still pressing her arms into the hot sand. "Not gonna shoot me?" He says with a pointed look back to her horse, a half-mile off, a rifle sheathed on the saddle.

She shakes her head silently, impressed by his good vision, but determined to keep the embers of violence burning in her eyes despite the overwhelming feeling that they were no longer needed.

He leans back, shuffling to his feet, the brace on his leg that she hadn't noticed before creaking wearily. He holds out a hand to help her up. She takes it, brow creased in question in how this man just went from lethal to harmless in less than a minute.

He helps her stand and she brushes red dust from her thermal and leather chaps, looking at him, incredulous, the whole while. Her nose is sore and bloody, and her elbows are scraped and stinging from the sand. His nose is also smeared red and there is a cut on his lip and a bruise already spreading yellow across his right cheek. He is wild eyed, red with dirt and sun. He is heavy booted and clad in a leather jacket that was dusty and gray like a moth’s wing, despite the blistering heat. His hair is spiky, off-kilter-- a haircut self-administered.

She tilts her chin up at him. "You hurt?"

He hums, nodding, but shrugs his shoulders. _No big deal._

"You a swagman? Don't see many of those these days."

The man doesn’t answer and instead busies himself with picking up his effects from under the scrubby Wirewood he had been resting by. The dog, a brindled Australian Cattle Dog with half an ear missing, growls as she takes a step closer, but he shushes her and she quiets.

"You need any of those cuts looked at?" She _should_ leave this scrap of human to rot, to bake away in the Outback sun until he was nothing but bleached bone ready to be whittled to sand.

He shakes his head. "No, no,” he rumbles, quiet. His things gathered, he walks around to the old, patched-up Interceptor on the other side of the Wirewood. It may once had been a black, snarling beast, but the desert grit was doing its best to kill it.

She follows him, impossibly, and she is screaming at herself that this is a terrible idea. "How about some water? Food?"

He shakes his head again, stowing away canteen, blanket, swag. The dog bounds up into the passenger seat.

Maybe the desert had already done its job, maybe this man was crazy. Many people of his ilk were. Wandering the Outback was no hobby of sane people. And now he was refusing help of any kind. A fool, that's what this man was.

But someone who would rather meander through a wasteland than to take a Welfare check or anything else of the sort, was not a man who wanted help. "How about a job?"

She sees his shoulders tense up at that, and he looks over at her contemplatively.

She pauses a moment, but knows that this is the best affirmative she'll get. "Follow me back. Lucky for us were only a few hours from the homestead."

She looks at and sees the disbelief welling on his face. He shakes his head. "Nah... you don't want... I can't..."

"I can't just leave you out here," she protests. And it's the truth. If he doesn't come with her, she'll have to follow him. To what end, she couldn't say. The thought of leaving him to certain death left her feeling hollowed out, bile-throated. "If you don't want our help, you can work for it. You're strong and not a War Boy, that makes you as good a candidate as any," she walks a bit closer to him. His eyes are darting around, trying to find a perch to safely land that wasn't on her. Her words rang with him, she could tell. "Muster is in a few weeks. We need help." She gestures to his car, to her horse in the distance. "You ride?"

He hesitates, licking his lips, then nods.

That honestly surprises her. This may not be such a stupid idea after all. "You got the camping gear," she says, waving a hand to the sacks in the back of his car. "That's all we can ask."

He shakes his head again. "No place to stay." With that he circles to the driver side of the car, opening the door.

"We have barracks, rooms. Not much, but better than sleeping on hot dirt." She pauses, watching as he processes it further. He shakes his head again after a long, torturous moment, and settles himself on the driver seat.

"Think about it, okay?" She calls to him before he can start up the engine and lose her words in its growls. "Homestead is about six kilometers northwest. There's a track. You're welcome there."

He makes no movement indicating that he's heard her, but she knows he has in the slow way blinks, ignites the engine, pulls away in the opposite direction.

She watches him for a moment, hoping that maybe he'll circle back, glowering at her all the while in final defeat, but his dust fades into the electric blue of the sky like vapor and she turns to go fetch her horse.

+++

The truth was, he was out here to kill himself.

He was too cowardly to do it himself. He thought maybe he'd let the Outback do that for him. Maybe a nasty bite from one of the multitudes of venomous creatures that, if film and television had everyone believe, inhabited every shady stone and bush out here.

All he managed to find so far were a couple of thorny devils, which only aided in his survival as he spitted them and roasted them over an open fire.

So strange, that he should be out here to end his life, only to prolong it with searches for food, packing his car to the gills with camping and survival gear, water, fuel.

But four days in, he was starting to feel it.

Jessie, Sprog. They were always with him, in his head, calling out for him when he slept, screaming in his ears as he drove. Now they were _there_ , the waste giving them new dimension, swimming in heat-crazed oxygen as it shimmered from the sand. Silent, knowing, disappointed.

He hated himself more for it every day.

What if he failed again? What if he was just too fucking good at _surviving_?

He couldn't cope with the thought. Of failing at something that he knew must be simple. So many things that could kill him easily-- mundane and indifferent.

The sixth day, he noticed another figure in his rearview.

This figure was on horseback. That's how he knew that it wasn't a ghost, come to witness his failed death. Fear trickled down his spine like a bead of cold sweat. No one could find him out here. This was no-man's-land, no one, not even Toecutter and his cronies, could find him amongst the swathe of acacia and rock.

The figure followed him the whole day, until he lost them by driving through the night. He had the luxury of headlights.

Or, he thought he'd lost them.

He had to stick to the rutted trails with his car. A horse had no such limitations.

And now, the stranger, who he had fought with death in his eyes, had offered him first aid, food, water, a _job_.

He shakes his head, blinking hard. The sun spills like wine over the sky now, red and sultry. He knows, eventually, that he would die. Not today, not tomorrow, probably not for months and he would burn, burn, burn in the Aussie sun with no one but his dog and his ghosts to see.

He turns to his dog at that, this unwanted companion that had forced herself on him despite his best efforts to keep her away. He couldn't do that to her, not now.

Sighing, he pulls his steering wheel back, turning the nose of the car northwest.


	2. Max the Mad Swagman

She had always loved the sight of red soot circling the drain. It was usually a good litmus as to how hard she had worked that day. Now, the water ran over her legs like the slip from a potter's wheel.

She had returned around dusk, Capable coming to meet her astride her own horse about a half kilometer from the homestead. "Did you find him?" She had asked.

Furiosa had nodded, but said nothing else and Capable didn't press her. The girl knew better than that, even while she had swept worried eyes over her sloppily cleaned bloody nose. The same could not be said about the other women. Toast and Cheedo had been wrist deep in chicken parts when she had walked in the kitchen, while Keep and Dag had been fretting over one steaming pot or another on the stove.

She had raised her hand as soon as the girls had opened their mouths, their brows knitted in concern. "Not who we thought he was."

With that, she had headed to the back of the sprawling ranch house that was the homestead. A sturdy, many-roomed compound of sorts. It was older, well-lived-in with peeling paint and stone floors buffed and polished by many feet. The large kitchen and the even bigger common room were the epicenter of the dwelling, with bedrooms, workrooms, and bathrooms splintering off in three directions. The whole house was circled by a covered, ground-level porch and there were more plantation windows than walls. Ceilings fans and more besides littered most every surface. Air conditioning was not a reality out here.

When she stepped out of the shower, she was only mildly surprised upon seeing Keep's lined, kindly face peering in through the cracked bedroom door. Open doors was the policy around here.

"Were you expecting a visitor?" The old woman asks with a grin. "Because there's some handsome young gentleman outside. Don't talk much, but said that he met the foreman of this place this afternoon. Says you offered him a job." She shakes her head, wistful. "Always thought you were a bit off."

Furiosa grins a bit at this. 'Met' would be one way to describe their encounter earlier. "Never told him I was foreman," she replies coolly, pulling a faded, ancient 'Prodigy' shirt over her head, unconcerned by Keep’s presence.

Keep rolls her eyes. "Oh, dear, you're obviously the boss. Anyone with two eyes doesn't need to be _told_ that." The old woman leans against the door jamb, waiting patiently for Furiosa to explain.

She smirks, raises a shoulder. "We fought. He won."

Keep raises her eyebrows at this, nodding in understanding. "Ah, a rare specimen indeed to do that. See why you'd want to keep 'im 'round." Her eyes were glinting in a way the Furiosa knew very well.

She rolls her eyes. "Not like that, Keep."

She knits her brow together at that. "Why not? He's bloomin' gorgeous."

She ignores this as she contemplates whether or not to strap on her prosthetic. "He's a swagman, but he can ride, he can fight...." She shrugs, turning to her dresser, abandoning her arm on the bed. "The muster is in three weeks and Citadel station is going to be a problem."

Keep nods, always on the same page. "Aye, and we need all the help we can get." She shifts further into the room, the many beads that dripped from her neck and wrists like stalactites rustle like locusts. "Can we trust him, Fruiosa?"

She pauses at that, shaking her head, face creased in careful apprehension. "He probably could have killed me." She shakes her head again, sighing and she turns to face the woman. "I think someone is after him."

Keep's face darkens at that, lines around her eyes digging deep. "Like the others."

Furiosa nods, pulling on a tattered pair of sweatpants. "Like the others," she repeats.

+++

He's standing next to his car, dog in his arms, looking deeply uncomfortable as the girls circle him curiously when Furiosa and Keep walk out into the yard.

"So this is who was wandering in our rangeland, eh?" Toast chimes as she looks into his Interceptor, appraising his gear.

"A terrible tumbleweed," Dag intones mistily as she scratches the dog on the top of her head. The dog responds with a lolling tongue dripping in slobber.

"As long as he's not a War Boy," Cheedo says from the porch, always the more cautious one.

"Nah, would've killed him," Furiosa says as she walks toward him, ghost of a smile on her lips. He looks stunned as his eyes fall on her before they shift down to the canine pressed to his chest. He clears his throat, opening his mouth to say something, before simply shutting it again.

"Some crazy feral shouting to the sun, come to be our jackaroo?" Dag singsongs as she picks a leaf out of his hair.

Furiosa nods, the description as good as any. Capable walks closer, arm in arm with Keep. "He looks strong enough," The girl observes.

Keep gives an approving hum as she looks him over like a new prize horse. "Haven't clapped eyes on a man like that in a long time. Not like those little wiry things we've had 'afore. Wannabe city slickers, the lot of 'em."

"Too busy oogling to actually catch any cattle," Toast mumbles more to herself than anything, brushing a loving hand over the car in front of her.

"Aye, this one ain't oogling. Looks more scared half to death," Keep crows and nods to him. "Our foreman Furiosa give you that?" She asks, pointing at the bruise on his cheek and the gash on his lip. His face twitches and Furiosa thinks she can see blush rising up his neck in the harsh half-light of the flood lights.

She decides to put the man out of his misery. "You hungry?"

His eyes flit to her, relief lighting his face just slightly. He nods and mumbles, "Mm... don't want to be a bother."

"Well boy, you already have all of us here out in the dirt at dinner time," Keep calls to him with a grin. "Givin' you a bite to eat shouldn't be much of a bother."

She thinks she sees the corners of his mouth twitch.

+++

Considering, dinner went as well as it could have.

They seat him next to the woman who had found him in the desert. Furiosa, they had called her. He never thought he had ever heard a more outlandish or more fitting name for a person in all his life.

Now that he wasn't scrambling to get away, to put as much Outback between him and her as possible, he notices the sheen of her shaved head, the long line of her neck. He didn't _need_ to notice, didn't particularly _want_ to notice, but he did all the same.

On his right was the red headed one who had come to the door at the sound of his car pulling up the long drive.

His dog had been placed in the kennel at the back of the house, an old Aussie shepherd and a rangy, massive wolfhound sniffing at her curiously. The rest of the women were arrayed around the large trestle table, passing boiled potatoes and roasted chicken. "Salad was grown here," the one with the blonde braids of all different widths and lengths explains to him patiently, as if he had asked her about it multiple times when she hands him a bowl of it. Her boney fingers are encrusted in rings of all varieties.

He contemplates how best to not embarrass himself as it had been days since he last had a proper meal. The prospect of one, fresh and steaming in front of him, made him a bit dizzy with anticipation. "You got a name to go with the pretty face there, boy?" The old woman says, breaking him from his thoughts and pointing her fork at him.

He almost jumps out of his skin and actually has to think for a full couple of seconds. "Uh... Max. Max Rockatanksy." He tries to smile, but he's sure it probably comes out as more of a grimace.

"Max the Mad Swagman," the blonde sings softly like a strange, wafish owl and the others smile. He’s beginning to get a bit overwhelmed, having no conception as to how he got here or why he continues to stay.

Furiosa nudges him a bit with the nub of her left arm, leaning closer. "Don't mind Dag, she's our resident poet."

"And gardener and cook!" Dag supplements pointedly.

The small, short-haired woman with tawny skin and eyes like tree bark waves to herself from across the table. "Toast," she says through a mouthful of potato. "Mechanic."

"I'm Capable," The redhead next to him says with a guarded smile, holding out her hand. He takes it gracelessly, thankful that he had washed his hands just minutes before. "Head stockman."

The sorrel-skinned girl with hair like kelp says nothing, pushing chicken across her plate disinterestedly. "This is Cheedo. She's our medic and vet. She's kind of shy of strangers," Dag provides, stroking the girl’s hair comfortingly. Cheedo offers him a small smile and leans her head on Dag's shoulder.

"I'm Keep," the old woman with the wild, white hair says to him from the head of the table. "I keep the garden and the homestead."

"And us," Cheedo says as she lifts her head from Dag's shoulder.

"Aye, and I keep the girls. Best not try any funny business there boy." Keep says with a wink, though Max does not doubt the seriousness of the threat.

"There's Ace too, but he's off getting supplies for us. He'll be back tomorrow. He's the ferrier and pilot.” Dag says.

"Don't forget your radical biker gang mothers, Furiosa. They should be here any day." Toast says quite innocently as she fixes Max with a wicked look, as if expecting him to yelp in fear and scurry away like a frightened mouse. Next to him, Furiosa fidgets in her seat on the bench and clears her throat in a nervous sort of way. She glances at him quickly, to gauge his reaction, but honestly he did not have the energy to work up anything but a look of passive interest. Everything today had been nothing short of fucking bizarre, so this revelation was just another knot in the rope, he supposes. This seems to assuage whatever anxiety that had settled into her and she returns to her food silently.

With introductions out of the way, he turns his attention fully to his food, resisting the urge to wolf it down like an animal. He is glad of the distraction, and that his presence seems to not have disrupted the well-rooted dynamic of the women too much, for they chatter about the chores to be done tomorrow and the muster in the coming weeks. He learns from their talk that their herd is about 20,000 strong, though they won't be sure until muster. He also hears words like "shmeg" and "bogan" intermingled with names like "Morsov" and "Joe". He shifts his forearms on the edge of the table, trying to move into his place here, find the space that these women seemingly had reserved for him.

The ease of his welcome, though strange to be sure, leaves him feeling hot, twitchy. He is a man, a man found wandering in the Outback with a dog and a beat up car. He could be dangerous, could lift them all for everything they had, could do so many other things. Out here, he could be long gone before anyone else would notice.

He has gotten a strong sense that these women trusted their foreman, Furiosa, with every bone and tendon in their bodies. He knows she must be remarkable to have earned that kind of faith from these women. He had known that once, back when he may have been a person deserving of it.

Also, he thinks, he was not the first drifter that they had taken in.

+++

Max is silent beside her. She can tell that he is holding himself back from shoveling food in his mouth like a shameless toddler. He is radiating nervousness, nothing at ease about him. With his jacket shed and hanging on one of the many hooks by the door, she can see the chords of his neck standing out like rope, muscles tensed like tripwire under his filthy thermal.

She wants to reassure him, _needs_ to. She can't think of the disappointment that would weigh on her if she woke up tomorrow to the sound of his car rumbling away.

"Want to help me with the dishes?" Is the only thing she can think to say as the meal winds down and the women yawn and laugh sleepily around them.

He looks at her, confusion writ on his face, but he nods to her with a tight-lipped smile.

He stands and collects his dish, hers, walks around the table to pick up the other's plates before she has a chance to stand. She thinks she sees a bit of eagerness in his motions, as if he is glad of the task and relieved to be doing something. Keep smiles at him appreciatively as he comes to collect her plate. She also notices his slight bow-legged gait, the damning trait of someone born in a saddle.

He washes, sleeves rolled up and suds to his elbows in the deep, stained soapstone sink. She watches, leaning against the counter, nails of her flesh hand clicking on the tile.

His eyes have stilled, his shoulders have loosened, settling with work. Her previous misgivings are quickly falling away as she realizes this. He needed a job. Needed to help.

He lifts a casserole dish out of the soapy water, turning it in his hands appraisingly. It was ancient, with green painted vines along the lip and chips and yellow cracks besides. "'S nice," he grunts before rinsing it off, placing it on the towel next to the sink carefully.

She smiles and he drains the sink, drying his hands. They've spent twenty minutes in silence and she barely noticed. The kitchen had been abandoned by the other women, all splintering off to showers or the common room. She is sure Keep had orchestrated this.

"Ready to move in?" She asks him with a small smile.

He pauses, looking to the side, head bowed slightly. He looks ready to bolt like a kicked dog. She ducks her head, taking a breath, and looks back up at him. "You can camp out, if you want. We can move you in later."

He looks up at her at that, his eyes bright with gratitude. Their gazes lock for a beat, before his eyes scatter away, nodding, swallowing hard. He's trying to speak, but can't form words, so he clears his throat, humming.

She takes him out back to get his dog and they circle back to his car. All but one light has been shut off, so the powdery arm of the Milky Way stretches above them like a jeweled sash. All her years here, and she still could never grow used to the sight. She hoped she never did.

"Breakfast is at five," she tells him as he opens the door of his car, pulling out his swag.

"She... Keep... she need help with it?" He asks her, spreading the swag.

She shrugs. "You cook?"

He nods in the dim, silvery light. "Short order cook. For a bit. Good at eggs."

She can't help but smile, his offer for help Keep with breakfast in the morning also hiding a promise that he would still be here. "We always need the help," she says after a pause. He groans as he lays down, boots still on, and she turns to walk back to the house.

"Thank you," he calls after her from the dark.

"Get some rest Max," she returns, small smile twitching at her mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhg. I have so much material written for this you guys, but it is so fucking *hard* to pin the characters down just right! Especially when I am refrencing and cross-shckecking and I have dozens of notes and little side-bars and rewrites and and and... *pulls at hair* Not to worry though, the more crazy something makes me, the more I want to do it. 
> 
> The next chapters are going to be doozies, because now I have to figure out how you run a cattle station. D:
> 
> 'Jackaroo' is the term for an apprentice stockman (Australian for cowboy).


	3. A Jackaroo's First Day

The dull, gray glare of the computer screen makes her blink and squint.

She was not particularly fond of computers. They were too fickle a creature for her thin patience, but they were a necessary and useful tool all the same. Especially when trying to research a mysterious Outback wanderer that she had just welcomed into her home.

The Internet out here was still sluggish dial up and she waited, nails clicking on the formica desk, for the browser to catch up.

Her search for 'Max Rockatansky' did not yield much. She found an outdated profile of him from the Adelaide police department website. He had resigned five years ago with no reason given. He was actually born in Sydney and was 40 years-old. The profile listed past experience in the UN Protection Force in Bosnia from 1993 to 94. He was injured in the "line of duty" in 2011 and was put on "lighter duty", which Furiosa knew meant they stuck him behind a desk. She also found an article published in November of 2010 by a small town Newspaper called the _Collier Chronicle_  about a mysterious house fire that had claimed the lives of his wife and child.

She stops reading then, feeling cold, chest tight. She swallows hard and powers the computer down.

+++

She wakens before the sun and walks into the kitchen to find Max shuffling many pans over the large range. Keep is slicing bread and Cheedo and Dag are pulling dishes from the cabinets. Capable is sitting at the table, poring over a map of the station with a highlighter. Toast is nowhere to be found, probably just now getting in the shower. The girl had been here two years, but still struggled with the 'early to rise' aspect of the range life. All of the women-- even Keep and Dag-- are decked out for riding, in chaps and thermals and riding boots. They were finding and marking cattle trails today, before Ace came back with the supplies. Then it was time to start fixing up the yards for the muster.

She's wearing her own chaps, black and studded like crocodile skin, and an ivory thermal with the sleeves cut off. Her arm gleams blue and cold in the fluoresces of the kitchen lights and her boots thud dully on the stone floor. "Morning!" Cheedo calls to her cheerfully as she takes a plate of eggs from Max. Max glances over his shoulder at Furiosa and clears his throat nervously as he turns back to the stove. It looks as if he's showered and has found some clean-ish clothes in his packs somewhere. His hair is still damp and it sticks out at odd angles. His bread is also shorter, more closely following the strong line of his jaw.

"Morning," she returns, a bit rough from fatigue. She is sore from her tumble with the man now standing at the stove and tired from her late night Internet searching. She rubs at her temple warily, noticing-- because she has to-- how his shoulders stretch the fabric of the threadbare blue t-shirt he's wearing. She has to know that he can hold his own with a 680 kilo Braford. She doesn't, however, have to notice how his denim trousers stretch over his ass, but she finds that she doesn't really mind the observation. She feels a small wave of heat swell up her neck. It had been a longer time than she'd care to admit since she had last been attracted to someone. Much less a man. A man who was a total stranger that very well could have some troubling mental issues based on the fact that she had met him wandering aimlessly in the desert.

"Our foreman hasn't had her coffee yet," Keep says from her place at the cutting board with a grin. "Dangerous circumstance that is."

She groans in agreement and moves to the full coffee pot, grateful both for the awaiting caffeine and the ready distraction.

+++

"Have to find you a horse."

The women are filtering out of the homestead and into the crisp, ash-colored dawn. The clouds shimmer above them, thin and iridescent horsetails of ice and vapor. May was a magical time in the Outback, but also unfaltering in its unpredictability. One day could be cool, all wind and dust. The next could be as hot as any day in October, before a savage storm would come rolling in to wash it all away within an hour.

Max looks over at Furiosa, who had lingered with him on the step of the porch. He nods at her words, looking down, suddenly not sure if he could do this. Horses had belonged in a part of his life that had long been dead and gone. Bringing them back felt treacherous. A fine edge of fear was starting to dig into his spine.

"Come on," Furiosa says with a hand on his shoulder as she passes him and he almost, almost, flinches. He can't really recall the last time someone touched him without the intention of pain and he has to chide himself for liking it so much.

The front yard was a swath of the iconic Outback red dirt, but some of the margins had been meticulously xeriscaped by Dag and Keep, he could only presume. Silvery Ongerup creeps along the Myall fences that form the perimeters of the many stockyards and it's fragrant, cedary scent curls pleasantly in his nostrils. Live Myall trees proliferate in most spare spaces, providing a precious haven of shade with their long, lanceolate branches. All of the plants are heavily burdened with unopened buds and he can only imagine how beautiful it will be out here in a week or so.

The horse barn is a large, low-slung building, and the sweet smell of dry-rot and manure assaults him with memory. A faded, peeling sign above the barn doors reads ' _Green Place Downs, est. 1915_ '. He hears the sound of a horse wicker.

He shakes his head, stopping in his tracks. He tries to recall his counselling sessions, a lifetime ago. _Breathe. In and out. Breathe. No one here to kill you. No fire. Just horses. Breathe._

"Max?" He hears her voice, filtering in like a trickle of water through a slow leak in his brain. He feels a soft hand on his shoulder again, though this time it stays there and the warmth of it seeps through his shirt, into his veins, spreading like oxygen. Her eyes, verdant, flecked with mud, catch his own despite his efforts to chase them away.

"Hey... what's up?" Her voice is so fucking _soft_ and not _scared_ and confident that he isn't going to go crazy on her that he finds that he doesn't. The flames and screams fade away as he blinks numbly at her. He had been sure that no one would ever be able to shoo his demons away with such ease, like brushing off so much dirt.

She squeezes his shoulder a with a small smile playing on her lips and turns back to the barn.

The stables are old, a bit shabby, but clean and spacious none the less and run yards flank both sides of the structure. They pass a dusty office where Capable and Toast are pulling out GPS devices and radios on their left and a tack room on their right where Cheedo is pulling down a saddle that looks to be about as big as she is.

"This is my beast," Furiosa says, stopping at the first stall past the tack room. Max jumps back as the massive black head of a horse pushes itself over the stable door, puffing hard through its nostrils. "His name is War Rig," she says somewhat ruefully as she pinches the horse on his neck and cuffs his chin with her metal fist. "He's a bastard, but he's my bastard."

As if to illustrate her point, War Rig bites at him as he comes closer. "All of our horses are rescues. This one here is half quarter horse, half thoroughbred. Got the thoroughbred temperament I guess." She says as she smiles adoringly at War Rig. The sight of it warms him and the edges of his mouth twitch.

"Most of the horses are spoken for, but we have about four that aren't," she says to him as she leads him further into the barn. Dag is at the far end, mucking out a stall while Keep pulls an old, massive mare with the markings of a dairy cow into the aisle.

By the time they stop at the predestined stall, he is a tangle of nerves, consumed with an edgy, twitchy energy.

He feels the heat of the horse's breath on his palm when he reaches for it. It nods to him, gives him a wicker, and he clicks his tongue in a way he had thought he had long forgotten. His fingers curl over fetlock, the hair rough and familiar. He feels his fear dissipate like mist burning away in a new-risen sun and he breathes.

Furiosa is silent behind him, watching.

He moves to the next stall, curious now, fascinated.

The horse inside does not approach him. She stands in the corner of her stall, chewing stubbornly on her empty hay rack. He watches her for a moment and she eventually turns her head to him, blinking. He unlatches the door and walks inside.

"He going for Maru?" He hears someone call dimly from behind him. He thinks he hears Furiosa sush them.

The little mare stamps her hoof on the ground, whipping her tail fretfully. He ventures a careful hand onto her back, humming tunelessly. He holds his other hand up to her muzzle so she may smell him.

The creature breathes him in, sighs, nibbles at his fingers with dry lips. He brings his hand from her back over her flank, up her neck, under her jaw. Her coat is dappled blue, like a silver cloud scattered with infant stars. Her mane and tail are shots of ink, black as soot.

He's shushing, humming, clicking. Making quiet noises and strokes and he is more of this earth than he had been in an age.

"That's Maru," Furiosa says from next to him. She had entered the stall without him knowing, but he doesn't flinch in fear as he may have done. "Arabian. A recent rescue. No one has been able to get very close to her except for Cheedo."

He looks around, just now noticing the other women arrayed around the entrance to the stall. He nods, turning back to the mare with her large eyes, flared nostrils, delicate, dished face. She's smaller, about 13 or 14 hands he'd guess. "Maru..." he mumbles, turning the word over in his brain a few times. "Aboriginal?"

Furiosa smiles slightly. "Means road."

He looks at her, as if it was some sort of joke, but her face is cool and steady. He pauses, stroking the mare's neck. "Like her," He finally manages.

Furiosa nods and turns on her heel. "Well, you can muck out her stall then. I'll get you some tack. Western? Cross country?"

"Western," he answers, patting his brace absently.

+++

He looks damn good on a horse.

He had lunged her for about half an hour before getting on her, putting her through her paces. Furiosa had recommended it in light of how seldom the mare had been ridden since they got her.

Furiosa had always suspected that Maru had been destined to be an eventing horse. Despite the mare's more recent stint of abuse and neglect, she was superbly trained. Furiosa didn't really know how a creature like Maru had ended up where she did, but Cheedo had found her in a tiny, filthy paddock when she had been called in to treat a case of 'colic' that had turned out to be a slew of other, more serious ailments. They had bought Maru from her drunken, slovenly owner the next day.

Max is clicking up through gaits, testing the grip of his legs, finding the right handle on the reins. Maru is dripping with foam from the bit.

The other girls are gathered around the fence of the yard, respective horses tacked up and ready to go behind them. They watch him, clapping and calling out encouragements and advice. "Give her her head a bit," Capable suggests. Max brings his hand forward a bit, and nods to her in thanks. "Her canter is pretty fast, watch out!" Cheedo warns, a smile spreading large and bright over her face at seeing Maru take so well to someone. Cheedo had been the only one able to get on her since they got the horse about two months ago.

"Feel good?" She calls out to him. He turns his head toward her, blinking. The sound of her voice seems to break into some thick haze that clung to him. He slows to a stop in front of her and Maru is twitchy, sweaty, but her eyes are brilliant and wild, instead of dull and sullen.

He nods down to her. She thinks he's a bit different too, fully rooted to the earth. "Good," he says, a bit breathless, beard parting with a small smile. She can't stop the shiver that thrums up her spine at the sight.

She pats her hand on the fence. "Let's go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry about the delay on this chapter. I have been trying to rangle out backstories and plotlines to make sure I don't have discrepancies in the future. Plus, research can get distracting at times. :D
> 
> I know it's been kind of a lot of set-up, but I promise next chapter will be a bit more exciting. Thank you all so much for your support! I couldn't do it without you!!


	4. On Returns and Other Things

The sun is already pressing on the back of her neck like a warm blade by the time they get three kilometers out. And three kilometers out, they find the trap.

It's a clever, cruel thing. A stolen salt lick leans on the roots of a scrubby Myall, coaxing curious Brafords into the waiting snares hidden in the brush, slicing skin and tendon, trapping them while they desiccate under the desert sun.

"Fucking cowards," Capable mutters as she toes the husk of a cow with her boot.

"Thought I heard dingoes the other night," Furiosa says contemplatively as she dismounts and crouches next to another victim. This one is older, picked clean.

She hears Max shuffle up behind her and she can _feel_ the confusion sloughing off of him like heat. She lifts herself back up and continues to walk around the perimeter of the trap. It aproned the entire tree. Bastards. "Citadel station," she calls to him without looking. "Some shmeg named Joe bought out the lease 'bout four years back."

"He has his sons running it. And some other scraps of human waste they were able to find," Capable continues while she digs through the saddle bag on her palomino. She pulls out a small set of wire cutters. "They want our station." She kneels by the wires and begins to cut them away.

Furiosa shoots her a severe look. "Get your gloves, can't have you getting Tetanus a few weeks before muster." The girl shrugs apologetically and returns to her saddle bags. Furiosa turns back to Max. "They're trying to scare us off. Get us to sell and high-tail it out of here."

"Doesn't help that their misogynistic pieces of shit," Capable says, voice acidic, hands now clad in gloves.

Max looks utterly lost, glancing from the trap back to Furiosa. She notices the rise in his shoulders, the tensing of his hands. She shakes her head at him. "Don't worry, they're mostly harmless. They underestimate us because we're women." She shrugs a shoulder, unbothered and she sees Max unclench, if only slightly. "Ace used to work at Citadel before Joe got his hands on it. Came to work for us about a month later."

"Want me to mark this on the Trimble Furiosa?" Capable asks as she fiddles with the device in question. Furiosa nods to her over her shoulder and turns back to Max. "Might have the pleasure of meeting them in a week. Remember those radical biker gang mothers that Toast mentioned? We always meet up with them in Windorah, have a night out for once, before muster. Citadel boys are usually there too."

Max nods, pauses, then points to her saddle bag. "Got gloves but no wire cutters."

She smiles as she goes to her bag to pull them out.

+++

They had split into groups to better scour the land, and they all manage to meet back up at the homestead around the same time. Keep slides from her saddle, cursing the whole way, while Dag frets over her like a worried hen.

They are all dusty and quiet with fatigue. They lead their charges into the run yards for feeding and grooming. She walks up to Max after clipping War Rig up in a bath stall. "How's the leg?"

He's unchinching the girth as he shrugs. "Been better."

She pats Maru before she walks away. "Ace'll be here any minute. Meet back at the homestead for some lunch." She calls over her shoulder.

After she's bathed and walked out War Rig, she gets him some fresh hay, water and feed. Keep and Toast are already making chicken salad with the leftovers from last night's dinner when she steps into the house. Ace is sitting at the kitchen table, wolfing down a sandwich and chips like he hadn't eaten in days.

"Slow down old man. Can't have you choking on us," Furiosa calls from the double doors that have been thrown open in the wake of the rising Outback heat.

"Fuck off," He grunts back, taking another enormous bite of his sandwich, effectively hiding his affectionate grin.

She punches the old man on the shoulder as she passes into the kitchen. Ace was an old-timer, 63. He was all hard, twisted, muscle with skin like cracked leather and a crooked mouth as a souvenir from a kick to the head by a horse. He was the best pilot she knew of, and took more pride in his work with the horses than anyone else she had ever known. Plus, he had a thing for Keep.

"Oi, who's this bloke?" Ace calls through a mouthful of chicken salad. She turns to find Max standing uncertainly in the doorway, dripping slightly from where he had rinsed himself off with an obliging hose at the barn. He looks all the world like a lost, confused dog.

"That's Max, our new Jackaroo," she answers, turning back to the making of her sandwich. "Max, meet Ace."

She hears Ace grunt in lieu of greeting as Max shuffles into the house. She doesn't have to look to know that Ace is tracking Max's path the whole way. The man was always suspicious of newcomers, with good reason.

"After you two are done grunting and glowering, you can help us unload the plane," Keep says, exasperated, as she sits at the table with her own sandwich. Ace sniffs disinterestedly and Max comes to stand next to her in the kitchen. She hands him the sandwich she had been making. "Here, you'll need it."

He looks at her gratefully, taking it to the table and sitting as far away from Ace as he could get.

+++

The little Cessna was packed to the gills with motor oil, flour, feed, and seed. Keep and Dag coo over the seed packets, exclaiming excitedly over which ones they would plant first. Ace and Max haul jerrycans to the garage where the trail bikes and ATVs were kept. Max looks from plane, to garage, to homestead, a bit overwhelmed, getting a full dose of the logistical nightmare that was running a working cattle station. Toast immediately sets to work oiling up her vehicles, leaving Furiosa, Ace, Capable, and Max to work on the yards.

"See anything on your way in?" Furiosa asks the old man as they make their way back to the yards.

Ace shakes his head. "Saw a dust trail 'bout 60 kilometers east of here. Might'n been a mob, might'n been somethin' else."

"Run into any lesbian biker gangs in Windorah?" Capable asks blithely.

Ace laughs. "No, but wish I did. Would've been a sight better company than the bogans you get out there. Saw our old friend Rictus though."

Furiosa and Capable both slow to a stop at that. She feels Max behind her, shuffling uncertainly. "Schlanger," Capable growls.

Ace nods in agreement. "Got some pretty new thing on his tuber of an arm. She don't look too happy 'bout it either."

Furiosa feels her blood run hot, acid hatred raising in her chest. "Did you call Val?"

Ace nods again. "Aye, didn't get an answer though."

"I'll do it tonight," she says, voice icy with promise.

+++

The yards are a mess, packed with brush and debitage from a year of ill-use. They are all panting and slumping with exhaustion by the end of it all.

Wheelbarrows, pitchforks, shears, and all the matter of other implements are put away in the little tool shed by the horse barn.

They all shuffle back to the homestead, the sun sinking into the red earth and splashing amber into the sky. There is a heavenly smell in the air, something rustic and ancient that can only be the smell of meat being cooked over flame. He rolls his shoulders, squeezes his knee. He can't remember a time when he has worked so hard for so long. His muscles ache beyond comparison, but there is something so _sweet_ about it. His skin is caked with dust, his nails are black with it and he hasn't thought about anything in hours. Nothing but cutting snares and pulling brambles and hauling oil and how fucking lovely she had looked on a horse in the new-day sun.

He tries, fails, to banish this last thought as Keep preemptively catches him at the door of the homestead. "One more thing, my boy," she says, patting his chest. "We're havin' a bonfire tonight. Gonna be lovely. Gotta celebrate our new jackaroo and Ace comin' back an' all." She waves a hand over her shoulder. "Get your dog out the kennels before she loses her mind and meet me at that wood shed." She points to a small, slanted building beside the house. "Just need some scrap wood from there. Not a bonfire without a fire, after all." She smiles, warm and broad and he can't help but smile back a bit as he goes to the kennels to check on his dog.

+++

After showers and a small battle over who, exactly, had used up the last of the hot water, everyone heads to the back yard. The doors and windows have been thrown open and golden light shafts into the tufts of grass and swathes of dust that spread wide and wild around them. A fire, taller than Toast, crackles cheerily into the night air, blotting out the galaxy above. The dogs are wrestling with one another in the dirt, or else gnawing happily on bones. David Bowie filters through a window and the smell of roasted pork and beans has everyone drooling.

"To our faithful Ace, returning safely with supplies and other offerings," Keep intones over them all, a glass of whisky clutched in her hand, "And to our new jackaroo, Max, who somehow survived his first day on the job."

Everyone throws up their respective glasses and they tuck into the meal whole heartedly. Max can't really recall a better plate of food in his life. Can't recall a time after the fire where he felt more _at home_ than he does now. It makes him feel groggy, a bit drugged. He doesn't know what to do with it, this strange fullness in his chest.

Furiosa leans over to him, looking a bit blissful. "Wait till Keep and Ace start one of their drinking games," she whispers to him, almost conspiratorially. He snorts a bit at this through a mouthful of homemade bread. "Keep," he says thickly, nodding to the woman laughing at the end of the table with Toast. "Bet she drinks him under the table."

Furiosa raises her eyebrows, surprised. "Very perceptive, for a fool," she says as she takes a swig of beer.

As the food runs out, the party is taken to the fire beyond, where they rest on benches hacked from entire eucalyptus stumps. The scent of them mixes with the warm aroma of wood smoke and he feels the heady mixture of it cloud his brain, already slow and content with the hardy meal. Dog is slumped in his lap, having enjoyed her own feast, and he idly rubs her ears.

Dag sits next to him, passing him a tumbler of whisky. "Keep sent me over, says you didn't drink a smidge."

He shrugs. "Don't drink much."

She holds up the tumbler again, insistent. "Only polite."

He takes it, greatful, and they clink glasses. "Will you stay, then?" The girl asks him, lamp-like eyes glowing in the firelight.

He twitches his shoulders, uncomfortable, clears his throat, nods. "Ah, if you... let me," he finally says, awkward.

Dag blinks at him, like he was a child who has just said something exceedingly foolish. "Oh, you are mad, Max the Swagman," she says as she rises to her bare feet. "If Furiosa likes you, you can stay as long as you want."

+++

After dousing the fire, Furiosa, Ace, the girls and Max all haul his meager possessions into the small, unused foreman's house. Furiosa had always preferred the homestead, having been living there since she was ten, so she reserved the little hut for the few seasonal workers they had seen come and go through the years.

The little house had two rooms: a small, rudimentary kitchen consisting of a few cabinets, an ancient fridge, an electric burner, toaster oven, and sink. There was a living area with a radio, a shabby couch, and a coffee table with a missing leg that had been propped up with a stack of bricks. The bedroom was in the back, filled with a warped bookshelf, a lamp, and a long, narrow bed. A bathroom was immediately off it, a faded blue curtain separating the shower, sink, toilet and medicine cabinet from the rest of the house. The best thing about the place was the open-air attic, accessed by a steep, narrow ladder in the small closet in the bedroom. There was a wood burning stove for the desert nights, and a window AC unit and two fans for the desert days. Split wood was stacked under the extended eave on the east side of the house. A porch complete with two plastic chairs and an empty planter finished off the space.

He seems to be a bit floored at receiving what must have amounted to him as a stately mansion. After the rest had left, he sits on the couch with his head in his hands.

"I'll have Capable bring in some towels and fresh sheets. If you need anything else, you can telephone the homestead." She indicates the dusty red phone hanging from the wall. "Just pick it up, doesn't dial anywhere else."

He looks up at her, the expression inhabiting his face is something wretched and raw. "Why?"

She looks at him for a long moment. They are both sizing each other up, both unsure of what to do with what they see in the other person. "We are the place for people with no place else to go."

He looks at her, the lines around his eyes fading, mouth slanted in a frown. He knows, then, that she speaks from experience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, had some difficulty with this one, but things are going to be much more fluid from here on out (hopefully). I hope my characters are still on point. Please tell me what you think!
> 
> BTW, a Trimble is a hand-held GPS mapping device.


	5. A Stockman's Night Out

She hangs up, rubbing the pinching nerves at the base of her neck, stretching tired muscles out with a groan.

Her talk with Valkyrie had been brief, the signal buzzy and garbled. Her and the Mothers were already riding to Windorah and would be there Saturday evening. Valkyrie doubted Rictus would still be there, but her friend appreciated the warning all the same. "Don't worry," she had told Furiosa in a menacing tone, but not humorless in the least, "if he's there, we're going to make his stay bit more uncomfortable."

+++

They would be heading for Windorah Saturday morning.

The rest of the week passed without much issue. They didn't find anymore traps, but did discover a large swathe of cattle trail, about seven kilometers southeast, passing into the rippling, silvery channel country that made up about half of their land.

Max had settled, rough and mute, into the ramshackle routine that was range life. Furiosa noticed the straighter way he held himself, his eyes steadying and slowing, his hands solid and nimble with work.

He rode beside her most days, making easy, silent company as they mended fences, marked cattle trails. He also scrubbed and scraped with Ace in the horse barn, mucking out stalls and cleaning the tack room. He bent his back in the gardens with Dag and Keep, taking Keep's constant ribbing with his own rough brand of grace. He practiced cattle calls, throwing a stock whip with Capable in the yards. He slid under ATVs with Toast in the garages, wiping black hands on grimy rags. He soothed Bagheera, the old wolfhound, as Cheedo gave him a rabies vaccine.

Quickly, stupidly, he had slid into their lives, unmovable and irreplaceable as a bolt in a lock.

Furiosa was an unfailingly logical person, practised and pragmatic with every move and choice. Which is why, she supposed, she had come to the conclusion that she _liked_ Max Rockatansky.

The decision itself, was not one that was made of logic, really. They hadn't had a real conversation since he had arrived. She knew very little of him, and he even less about her, but they understood each other in a way that really couldn't be articulated. They gravitated to each other, coursed on a comet's orbit, finding each other on the bench of the kitchen table, in the grooming stalls washed in dawn light, on dusty trails and hard stumps passing water from hand to hand.

She knew that it helped that, although gruff in words and manner, he was gentle, even kind at times. He was patient with all the girls, who had warmed to him like he was an old friend who had simply been on holiday. He never questioned them and their skills, never placed himself above them because of what they lacked between their legs like so many of the others who had come and gone.

It didn't really hurt that he was as good looking as he was.

Dating was not exactly her... thing. Once upon a time, she had thought that maybe she was actually a lesbian. Valkyrie had stroked her fingers through her hair, still long and deep brown then. "I think you may be barking up the wrong tree, kid," she had told her, voice sad and eyes kind.

Sex, she could handle. She had fucked a few of the seasonal jackaroos that had roamed in and out of her life after she had moved back to Green Place Downs. Sex was easy when they so clearly wanted it and she was so happy to oblige, having much stress and anger to work off. Chopping wood and sparring with Ace could only do so much.

Relationships, however, were a minefield. She was too prickly, too sharp-edged, for anyone to handle properly. There were a few men who had actually fooled themselves into thinking that maybe they wanted that with her, and she had instinctively thrown them off her like a wild brumby. For their own good, of course.

All these things aside, she was too busy for all that. With the station to manage and the girls to look after, there wasn't much room for dating in her agenda. Something insistent and earnest told her, however, that Max wasn't really one for the awkward dance of dates and small talk. As much as she may try to ignore it, it only made her want him more.

That's perhaps why she felt a small burn in her ears, a slight lightness in her chest, as she woke up Saturday morning.

They all (with the exception of Ace) manage to pile into Keep's massive black van while the sun is still new and pink in the sky. They're loaded down with sandwiches and water and bags packed for a night's stay. The girls buzz with excitement, joking, making plans. Max sits between Cheedo and Dag, who are avidly telling him about the hot springs, the market with stalls full of Aboriginal art work, and the quirky local watering hole The Dusty Trail.

"I can't wait to have some real coffee!" Toast exclaims.

"I want some new CDs," Capable says as she chews happily on a sandwich.

"Gonna sink these old bones straight into those hot springs," Keep says from the front seat with a wistful smile.

Furiosa can't help a small grin as she backs the van out of the garage and onto the long road ahead.

+++

Windorah was the largest town for hours around, right in the middle of Queensland Channel Country. It consisted of just a handful of buildings, old, slanted, dust-bitten. There was a bar, a diner, two motels, an open-aired market, a garage, a general store, a welcome center for tourists, and even a Family Dollar. The main attraction of Windorah was the national park nearby that housed the hot springs that brought travellers from both far and near.

They pull into the parking lot of the motel. It was already half full, busy with the various stockmen filtering in the days before they would be swallowed up by the desert for a month or more.

They stumble tiredly into their rooms, the girls taking up one, and Furiosa, Keep, and Max in another. Max had insisted on sleeping on the floor of their room, the idea of his own room paid for by the station unthinkable to him. All of them are road-weary and sore and Max grunts unpleasantly as he removes his leg brace and rubs at his knee.

"A trip to the hot springs could do you some good too," Keep says and points a finger to his leg.

He shakes his head. "No trunks."

Keep cackles a bit at that as she leans forward and digs through her old apothecary bag. She reemerges with a pair of blue swim trunks clutched in her hand. "Thought that might be the case." She tosses them to him. "Stole 'em from Ace. Don't worry, I washed 'em."

+++

They all agree to meet up around suppertime at The Dusty Trail. Furiosa wings it solo, stopping by the feed and supply store. Dag, Cheedo, and Keep take the van twenty miles north to the hot springs. Capable and Toast, heads bent together in excitement, head to the market. Max is left by himself during the daylight hours for the first time in over a week and he's a bit uncomfortable with the strange, bereft feeling that now fills his chest.

He bobs along in Toast and Capable's wake at the market. The girls give him a comfortable berth, accurately assuming that he may want some time alone. He's thankful, but also a bit lost, not knowing how to accurately relate to his surroundings without the women to guide him as they had so easily been doing these past few days.

He palms an obsidian figurine of a rearing brumby, mane a wild, fluid tangle. An old, toothless aborigine smiles at him mutely. He lifts the figure in his hand, pointing at it. The woman smiles warmly at him, taking his rumpled wad of bills.

He had some money, having been saving up his police pension in the light of nothing else to do with it. Furiosa had told him he would be getting a flat sum of money at the end of muster, but he was not much interested in that. He glanced around at the stalls bedecked in colorful bolts of cloth, scraps of eucalyptus bark painted with mud. Without really thinking about it, he was suddenly searching, instead of simply purusing, carefully selecting, thoughtful.

He was buying a new pair stockwhip for Capable, blunted and gentle, when a man clapped a hand on his shoulder.

Max jumps, almost dropping the whips. The man was broad and fat, but powerful. His eyes were dark, watery, hair long and white and wispy like cotton. An oxygen mask covered his mouth, which shone red and wet from under the plastic. Max swallowed his bolt of fear and offered a grunt in greeting.

"You must be the new jackaroo at Green Place," the man says, warmth thickly and precisely applied over his words. His voice was deep, dark, with a menacing timbre.

Max pauses, eyes darting. He knew who this man was almost immediately. He shrugs a shoulder and hands the waiting vendor his payment. Joe straightens up a bit, tucking his thumbs into his broad, ostentatious belt. "Could use a strong man like you over at Citadel. Could get you some real money, real experience."

Max takes his change, nods in thanks and turns to Joe, his face blank and stony. "No thanks."

Joe acts as if he hadn't said anything. He waves a hand at him. "You'd make a fine stockman some day! Deserve more than the... what... 40,000 she has you down for?"

She actually offered 50, but he wasn't about to tell him that. He stands, mute, rolls his shoulders.

Joe claps him on the shoulder again, like he's greeting a beloved son. "Think about it. If you get sick of destitution and taking orders from a one-armed bitch, you know where we are." The man strides away, pulling an oxygen tank along behind him. Max feels the chords in his neck tense, hard as rebar, and blood is roaring loud and hot in his ears.

+++

She pulls open the rickety screen door for The Dusty Trail and it claps closed behind her noisily. She sees Max's head shoot up from his spot at the bar, eyes far away, before they refocus on her and he offers her a tiny wave.

She makes her way over to him, pulling up a stool. "Same, Furi?" The old bartender, Tom, says in way of greeting. She nods, taps two fingers on the bar and turns to Max. He's already looking at a point over her shoulder, eyes blank, the Coke he had ordered beading with condensation and desertion.

Two fingers of whiskey is placed in front of her and she takes it with a grateful tip of her glass. The bar is still fairly empty, the atmosphere tired and quiet. It was early, only four thirty.

They sit in silence for a time. She pulls out her ratty field journal, scratching out the supplies she had just bought at the general store (and promptly dropped at the motel). He sits beside her, shifty and troubled.

"Met him," he finally mutters, voice thick with something dark and cold. "Joe." He spits the last word like it was a nasty slur.

Furiosa smiles, lips tight, tapping her pen on her chin. "Ah, isn't he the charmer?"

"Bastard," Max spits out, shaking his head, brow furrowed in disgust.

Furiosa pauses, contemplating. She looks at her empty glass, raises her pen to the bar tender who nods at her. "Two whiskeys."

+++

The Mothers rumble in after her third and Max's second.

The girls and Keep had showed up just under and hour earlier, all chatting excitedly about their travels. Cheedo tells a captive (and disgusted) audience about Dag saving a beetle ("Not just any beetle! It was a _rhino_ beetle!") from the boiling waters of the hot springs. "She _kissed_ it before she put it in the woods!" Cheedo says through her giggles, looking fondly at Dag while the woman in question looks at her comrades wonderingly, as if any of them would have done the very same thing if in her situation.

"What did you do Max?" Toast asks while she sips on a rum and Coke.

Max lifts a shoulder, looking at the bags at his feet, his expression vaguely confused. He finally leans forward, rummaging for a moment, before procuring a dusty, tattered book. It's a Haynes manual for the Ford Falcon V8, his car. "Said you wanted to work on it with me."

Toast is not one for overt displays of emotion, but the smile that she attempts to bite back is better than anything Furiosa has ever gotten out of her. There's bit of a stunned silence, before Dag, sitting beside him, leans forward to paw through his assorted bags. She reemerges with a delicate flute made of bone and looks over at him, eyes wide and lamp-like. "A bone flute! So I can bring in the blossoms!" Max nods, looking ever more uncomfortable.

More gifts are pulled from the bag: a stockwhip for Capable, a lavender plant for Cheedo ("for soothing the horses!"), a new beaded necklace for Keep.

Whatever he may have gotten for Furiosa (if anything-- she won't flatter herself) remains a mystery as they all look towards the door at the roar of many motorcycles filling the tiny bar.

Keep grins broadly at the sound. Furiosa feels a leap in her chest as she stands and strides to the door.

"Fuck, you look old," Valkyrie says with a luminous grin as she wraps her arms around Furiosa. The woman laughs into her shoulder.

"That's saying alot, coming from you," Furiosa returns as they part.

"Fuck me, Keep just keeps getting lovelier and lovelier!" Maadie exclaims as she peels off her helmet. Keep slaps the woman's arm and they embrace.

The parking lot is momentarily a mess of women, young and old, filtering through each other with warm laughs, loving insults, and out-stretched arms. Furiosa is so ecstatic with the return of her family that she almost forgets Max.

He is standing nervously at the door, as if coming out here had been against his better judgement in the first place. She leads Forthright over to him,interrupting the woman's reprimands for her being so skinny ("You work on a cattle station! Eat a damn steak!"). "Forthright, this is Max, our new jackaroo," she says with what she hopes is a reassuring smile to the man in question.

Forthright earned her name very well, which is why the woman looks him over suspiciously. "How long's this one gonna last?"

"Been with us for over a week."

Forthright's eyebrows move up on her face just a fraction. She nods and offers a sun-marked hand. "Nice to see you, boy. Hope you stick it out."

Max nods back to her, shaking her hand, coughing in lieu of a greeting.

The others slowly introduce themselves, with much wise-cracking and shit-talking. Furiosa watches him closely, waiting for him to simply bolt back to the motel. He is lead to a bike by Maadie, by far the most loquacious of the women. "So glad they found someone who actually knows something about engines! Look at this for me, would ya? This old back isn't getting me all the way down there." Knowing what she does about Max, she thinks he'll be just fine for now.

They all slowly meander back to their table in the bar and Tom greets them all good-naturedly. Valkyrie takes her usual spot by Fruiosa, gripping a mug of dark beer and the girls all crowd around excitedly, ready to listen to their tales of the road.

Valkyrie and Forthright launch into a story about a land train driver they had picked up outside Adelaide, who later was revealed to be an old bank robber of moderate Australian myth back in the 70s. With the tale done, The Smith starts discussing the state of the Green Place tack room with Capable (the woman was deemed The Smith because she was perhaps the finest saddler in Australia). Vyrie talks to Cheedo about the various animals. Dag, Keep and Forthright catch each other up on the gardens. Maadie is still taking, with much animation, to Max, who is nodding and saying very little. Ada and Toast exchange the latest dirty jokes they've learned since last year's muster. Val turns to Furiosa, eyebrow arched knowingly. "Where'd you find this one?"

Furiosa scoffs, taking a sip of whiskey. "That's kind of a story."

"You fucked yet?" Furiosa looks at her murderously. Val blinks at her, innocent. "What? He's, well, generally saying, a strapping bloke."

Furiosa snorts into her whiskey, hiding her sideways glance to the man in question. "He gave the girls gifts," she says suddenly, not really knowing why she's saying it.

Valkyrie looks at her, shocked. She turns back to glance at Max before giving Furiosa an understanding nod. "No wonder you haven't fucked yet."

 _You like him_ is not said, but not well hidden under Valkyrie's tone. Furiosa chooses not to respond, instead busies herself with peeling a peanut.

Before Val can annoy her further about it, three War Boys walk in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is taking so long you guys, but this story is seriously challenging me! Ensembles are not in my wheel house. Thanks so much for sticking with me. Your support means everything. And don't worry, we'll be having some fantastic Max/Furiosa soon!!


	6. Fierce Creatures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, kiddos, I have officially sinned. The rating has been upped, so continue at your own risk. (Steamy smut ahoy!)

War Boys were so called because Joe liked to pick his stockmen from the cadres of veterans that had returned home from Afghanistan. Joe did it because he thought it made him look compassionate and charitable, but Furiosa (and the Mothers) had other, darker thoughts on the matter. The men Joe employed were especially riddled with PTSD, vulnerable and raw like exposed wires. She suspected that these damaged men were simply easier for Joe to manipulate, promising them wealth and stability-- and possibly some sort of spiritual calming-- as long as they obeyed his every whim. In truth, Furiosa felt almost sorry for them, but that didn't stop her from coiling up like a rattlesnake whenever they were around.

The one they referred to as Slit strode in, a characteristic crooked smirk snaking along his face. His black, lizard eyes scan the bar as his two companions swim along in his wake. Furiosa glances away as Slit's gaze lands on her like a searchlight.

She could feel Val prickling like an echidna next to her as she hears the men tramp to their table.

"Didn't think you'd see shelias like this in Windorah, eh boys?" Slit says smugly. Furiosa looks up to see him tucking his thumbs into his belt, looking triumphantly over the heads of the women arrayed around the table. One of the men behind him sniggers appreciatively. Morsov, he was called. A tall, gangly man who was a bitter, angry drunk and liked to spit.

"Ah, Slit, always the charmer," Forthright calls, lifting her lager at him in greeting.

Slit looks at her with flashing eyes. If the man was known for anything, it was the short wick on his temper and his impossibly delicate ego.

"Yo, hey, Slit, wanna maybe... get a drink? I'd kill for a pint." The third one, Nux, looks over at him, pleading. He was the newest addition to Citadel, a ball of nervous energy with a face that mostly consisted of large, blue eyes. He'd been there for four years and loved Joe like a prophet, but he was always the more harmless of the men under Joe's regime, the most reasonable. Furiosa wished that Nux wasn't so damn naive, maybe then the boy could be convinced to come across the fence.

Slit looks over at him acidly, as if Nux had flung a nasty insult, and turns back to the women, all regarding the men with varying states of careful disinterest and open disgust.

Just when she thinks they may actually leave, Furiosa sees a flash of glee swell in Slit's face as his eyes land on Max, who is sitting with shoulders hunched and tense on Val's other side. "Fuck me, it _is_ true!"

He prances to behind Max's chair, excited, and claps him on the shoulder. "Come with us, will ya? I'll buy ya a pint. Get you away before the hair braiding starts, eh mate?"

Max looks impossibly taut, a rope pulling at its mooring until it would surely fray and snap. "No," he grits out and Furiosa can see the chords in his jaw standing out like tree roots.

"Come on mate," Slit continues, unperturbed.

"Leave him alone," Cheedo growls darkly from beside Max.

"Yeah, Slit, he doesn't want--" Nux starts, conciliatory.

"I know what he want's to do," Slit interrupts him, a knowing and sickening smile drawing slowly over his face. He lowers his face to Max's ear, conspiring. Furiosa can't make out what he says, but in a flash, Max has an arm locked around the man's windpipe.

There's a small cacophony of chair legs scraping against the floor, warning shouts, shocked gasps and angry protestations. Slit is gulping breathlessly, face flushing red. Morsov is trying to get at Max with curled fists, but his way is blocked by Val and Forthright, the latter woman having practically jumped clear over the table. Furiosa thinks she hears the click of Val's very much illegal pistol in her jacket pocket.

"We're going, we're going!" Nux says, voice pitched high as he holds pleading palms towards Max.

Max releases his grip and Slit gasps, clutching his neck, almost falling over with the vertigo. " _Fuck_ ," he rasps, looking stunned and wrathful all at once. Max doesn't spare him another glance, rolling his shoulders, face dark and furious, and he drains the last of his whiskey with a grimace.

Slit looks rumpled and wounded and ready for blood, but quickly wilts in the face of the eleven pairs of eyes staring him and his two companions down like a pack of she-wolves.

Slit limps off with Nux offering admirable attempts at comfort. Morsov trails behind them, guffawing dumbly as they make their way back to the bar.

"You're gonna have to teach me that move," Toast says coolly to Max as she sits back down, her eyebrows raised.

Max throws up a shoulder, dismissive and promising all at once. Furiosa tries to hide her smile with her glass, only to find that it's empty.

Keep gets to her feet, heading to the bar. "Well, if there wasn't a reason to drink before, there sure is now!"

+++

Luckily, the motel is only a few blocks away.

He keeps a distance between himself and the knot of women ahead of him, all drunk and breathless and puffing white vapor into the chilly air. Most of the younger girls were pushing the Mothers' bikes alongside them as they walked, chatting and laughing.

He is warm from the whiskey and his nerves are still twitchy with suppressed violence. He thinks that he should be fuming over the War Boys, or anxious from the long time in the company of so many people, but he finds that he isn't thinking of much. He's a little drunk, tired, _happy_.

Which is why, he supposes, he doesn't notice Furiosa coming up from behind him (she had stayed behind to settle the bill), sliding her palm under his own, squeezing with long, nimble fingers. The gesture is short, firm, telling. _Thank you_.

He's startled into a stop and he thinks he see the slightest quirk of her mouth as she walks ahead of him.

He flexes his hand, as if she'd burned him.

+++

The ride back to Green Place is long and fairly miserable with everyone being in various states of hangovers ("Lightweights, the lot of ya!" Keep had mocked in the face of the women's groans and complaints).

Max, to her tremendous relief, had volunteered to drive. He was a bit more grumbly than usual, squinting against the sun in an irritated sort of way, but otherwise seemed to be in fine spirits. She spent the long drive in the passenger seat beside him, feet propped on the dash, shuffling through her iPod while the others slumbered in the back. Max hummed his approval with her choice of Led Zeppelin and she smiled before she found herself swayed into sleep by the quiet hum of asphalt and the soft heat of happiness in her chest.

+++

"He's a good man, Furiosa." Keep looks at her from over her tea, swirling the tea bag around contemplatively.

They had all unpacked and eaten and had a fairly lazy day of recuperation. The Mothers had piled into their rooms, exhausted. Toast escaped to her garage, while the other three women had filtered out to various spots on the porch, napping, reading. Max had gathered up a very excited Dog and disappeared into his apartment. Keep and Furiosa sat alone at the kitchen table, discussing what was to be done before muster in the coming week. She's not certain how the conversation had taken such a turn.

She just hums, agreeing, but restrained, raising her eyebrows as she takes a sip of her coffee.

Keep peers at her thoughtfully. "He makes you happy," she said, stating a fact.

She shifts her shoulders, defensive. "You make me happy, the girls, the station," she returns.

Keep nods slowly. "Aye, but it's something else to meet someone who's your equal." She scratches her chin thoughtfully. "Someone who makes you better."

Furiosa smiles, small and bitter like a weed. "He's fucked up. Just like me."

Keep rolls her eyes, exasperated. "He's _fierce_. Just like you." She pauses, looking at her, a bit sad, a bit adoring. "My mother used to say 'Keep, fierce creatures like us don't find many mates in life-- romantic or otherwise.'" The old woman lifts herself to her feet with a small groan. She shuffles over to her, slippers clicking on the stone floor. She lays a hand on her shoulder, warm, comforting. "'So when you find one, take care of it.'" Keep leans closer to her, her eyes kind and loving and Furiosa feels a bit of shame for being so taciturn. "'Because fierce creatures mate for life.'"

+++

Muster was fast approaching. Only another week, and then their home would be the red Outback sand, the silver Ongerup, the sharp Knife Leaf, and the homestead flurried with work in anticipation of it.

No matter how many times she had done this, Furiosa always felt the stress of the approaching muster as fresh as if she were a green Jillaroo. She double and triple-checked the charges on the radios, hovered over Cheedo as she examined the horses, talked with The Smith about the condition of the tack, went over flight routes with Ace, pored over maps with Capable. Keep and Dag were more busy than ever in the kitchen, cooking up rations and drying jerky. The Mothers practiced their riding and cattle calls with the dogs in the yards. Toast sweated in the desert sun, tuning up the tiny helicopter, cleaning the few guns they'd be taking along.

Max was mainly in charge of gathering and triple-checking the camp supplies, waterproofing tents and tarps, sewing patches onto swags. He sat in the shade of his front porch, Dog at his feet, testing water filters and headlamps.

Before she knew it, everything was checked off on her list and the night before muster arrived.

Once a week, there was no communal dinner. It was a chance for everyone to be alone for a time, to unwind and decompress. This 'free night' was especially vital now, when they would all be together in the desert, unable to find much in the way of privacy and patience would surely be running dry.

Usually, the night before the muster would consist of her sitting in her room, unable to eat and feeling a gnawing anxiety deep in her belly and a buzz of excitement in her chest. Everything was riding on her and her command in the next few weeks. If she made the wrong decision, even on the most simple of matters, it could mean a lackluster mob to take to market, possibly even someone's life. She usually best dealt with this dark tension alone.

But she didn't want to be alone tonight. She was terribly alone, _all the time_. Even with her girls, whom she loved as fierce as the Outback sun, she was alone.

But with Max, she never, not once, felt alone.

So she is not so sure what she is doing, when she finds herself at his door with a fifth of whiskey and a six-pack of Shiners under her arm.

She hears the back door clap shut from within the house and a great deal of shuffling before he opens the door.

He's wearing a black tee shirt that looks awfully good on him and gray sweats. His hair is mussed and wild as he blinks at her from the door.

"Sorry..." she mutters, suddenly hot with embarrassment. She is very unaccustomed to the feeling. "Were you asleep?"

"Uh, no..." He clears his throat and looks down at his feet and looks back at her. "'S letting Dog out."

She nods, slightly relieved. "Well, sorry to drop by like this..." She trails off, not knowing what to say to explain herself.

There's a short pause before Max clears his throat again. He takes a step onto the porch, holding the screen door open for her with two fingers, saving her the trouble of finding an excuse.

She smiles and walks in.

The place looks as if no one has moved in at all, except for the fact that it's clean. A coffee mug and a camp French press sit on the counter in the kitchen and the wood stove cracks mirthfully from in front of the sagging couch. Dog stretches from her bed on the floor and walks over to her, tail wagging. She scratches her ears as Max steps back in.

"Adjusting all right?" She asks him as she looks around. The coffee table bears a few tattered sketchbooks and a messy assortment of charcoal and pens. _He fucking draws_?

He nods. "'S perfect," he says, so earnest that she feels like either kissing him or running very, very far away. She feels the adrenaline kicking in hard and fast and she hasn't even sat down.

"Here," he says as he steps forward and takes the beers from her. He places them on the counter, pulls two out, and then deposits the rest into the tiny, empty fridge.

He twists off the caps and hands her one. She takes it, raising it gratefully. He mimics her before turning to one of the three tiny cabinets afforded to him, and takes down two heavy bottomed whiskey tumblers.

She raises an eyebrow at him as he hands her one. "No ice," he says, not at all apologetic.

She sits down on the couch with a small smile, and pulls open the bottle of whiskey with a little 'pop'. He sits down beside her, keeping his distance, and offers her his glass. She pours one for him and he looks appreciatively at the generous offering. They clink their glasses together and swig. He doesn't finish his, she does. He laughs a bit at this and she smiles at him despite herself.

"I, uh," he starts, clearing his throat, scratching the back of his neck. "Meaning to thank you."

She shakes her head quickly at that. "No." She pours herself another whiskey, but picks up her beer, saving the liquor for later. "You're a..." she didn't know the right words and she shakes her head again, brow crinkling. "You've helped us so much... even though you've only been here a couple of weeks." She smiles wryly at him. "You... War Boys speak the dick language, if you get my meaning. You ruffled them a bit, knowing that you spoke it too."

He just stares at her, stunned, before a reluctant half-smile crawls along his face and he chuffs out a laugh. She returns it in kind and she sips on her beer.

"And the girls love you," she says after a silence that was not quite as comfortable as usual. "That's what really matters."

He swirls his beer contemplatively for a moment. "Mm... it is."

"What?" She asks a split second before she knows the answer.

"What matters."

She swallows, a lump forming in her throat. She looks down at her beer bottle, thumbing the edge of the label absently. "They're all from dark places. The Mothers..." She trails off, taking a steadying breath. "They break them out of those dark places. Bring them here."

Max doesn't say anything and she doesn't expect him to. She can feel his eyes on her though, in the dim light of the old floor lamp and the orange glow of the wood stove.

"My mother was one of them," she says suddenly, needing to spill some of her darkness out and into the light of his eyes, the warmth of this place. "Came here when she found out she was pregnant with me. This place has been owned by one of them since the 40s." She sighs, stretches out her legs, prop her feet on the table. "She had me here, raised me here, 'till she died." She hears Max fidget at that, shifting in his seat on the couch, hands fretting with his beer. "Died of a fever. Couldn't get a doctor out here fast enough." She swallows, takes a sip of beer. "Keep raised me from then on. I was ten. I joined the army as soon as I could, I was so ready to get away." She shakes her head, lost, helpless. "Lost my arm on my fourth tour. Afghanistan. Came back here." She looks back up at him and his eyes level with hers. She shrugs a shoulder, bashful. "With no arm, I was of no use to anybody. But out here, I could be of use to them, at least." She forces a small, watery smile at him. His face is dark, his eyes burn bright with something that has her heart thudding against her ribs.

"You--" he coughs, shakes his head. "You shouldn't... undersell yourself... like that."

She stares, unblinking, face blank with confusion. "You're so much..." he continues, though it looks like it pains him to do so. "So much to them. And..." He stops, gritting his teeth.

She shifts towards him on the couch and he doesn't shrink away. She thinks he may move a bit closer. A searing heat is blooming over her skin that has nothing to do with the whiskey. "I've always liked the attic this place has."

His eyebrows shoot up at that, but he nods, standing.

He grabs some blankets from the shelf in the closet as she climbs up the ladder. He hands her the beers, whiskey, tumblers before climbing up behind her, blankets over his shoulder.

The attic is open-aired to store hay, but hasn't been used for such purposes in a long while. A lift door opens to the back of the house and a shaft of silver moon spills onto the floor. Old bike parts litter the margins along the walls. It smells of oxidized metal, old wood, the sweet tang of motor oil. She breathes in the cold night air, letting it fill her lungs, expanding so it may chase the darkness away that found itself lodged there.

He spreads one of the blankets down on the dusty floor and sits slowly with a small groan, feet hanging over the edge of the floor from the open lift door. She follows suit, close enough that their arms press up against each other, and she revels in his heat. He tosses the other blanket around the both of them, seemingly unconcerned with the intimacy of the action.

"Still not used to riding," he says, messaging his knee with his free hand. "Knee doesn't like it."

"How did you get that?" She asks.

"Bullet," he answers.

He offers nothing else and she doesn't want much else. "I remember the first time I got thrown from a horse. My ass hurt for a week."

He smiles, knowing and true and bright. The gesture is so rare she finds herself tucking the image away into her chest, so she may carry it with her forever.

"I was being reckless, of course," she says blithely, taking a sip of the bourbon sitting by her thigh. "Tried to jump him over a hedge that was too high, went right over his head."

He chuffs. "Done that before. Hurts."

They are silent and she is burning to touch him, be near him, this wasteland man and all of his ticks and kindnesses. It's alien to her, to _want_ someone like this. Not even in a physical way... though that wasn't out of the question. She wants to _know_ him, _be_ with him. She ventures her flesh hand to his own, curled over the edge of the wooden floor, and threads her fingers experimentally through his knuckles.

He looks at her, eyes flashing, gray and dark as a thunderhead. They are the same height, the same beings, the same fierce creature.

_Fierce creatures mate for life._

She doesn't really know, nor really care, who does it first, but suddenly their mouths are open and wanton against each other and she is pulling at his jaw and his palm is hot and large on her scalp.

His hands sculpt her like cold clay, warming, softening, reshaping under his touch. She rakes her metal fingers down his spine and he shivers. The blanket falls away as he ducks his head to get at her jugular, hard teeth scraping tendon and leaving her insides vaporized in its wake.

They pull and claw at clothing, mouths feeding on each other, eager to taste every new plane of skin offered to them. She is all scar-clad ivory, hard muscled and long-lined. He is tawny chords and ropes, calloused and rough with wiry hair.

She climbs over his thighs, dangling over the edge of the attic floor, and pushes her pelvis into his own, reveling a bit too much at the evidence of his arousal. She looks up, finding the stars above them, as he blazes a heated trail down her chest, between her breasts. She moans so ardently it pulls a surprised breath from the man lapping at her sternum.

He looks up at her, eyes dark as pitch, plush lips swollen and red, hair a mess, beard a tangle. He's just fucking beautiful. "I uh... don't have any..."

She reaches behind her and pulls a condom from the back pocket of her jeans. He looks at it, brow stitching together in confusion. He looks back up at her and the smirk that draws itself on his face as he comes to understand the implication has her laughing. "Shut up," she says through a smile.

Still grinning, he splays one broad hand over her back and plants the other on the ground and pushes them back into the attic. He lays back on the blanket, making no move to get on top of her and she feels the hot flash of desire rock through her like a seismic pulse. They're both shirtless and she takes a moment to sit up, take him in. He's built from rough living, all bunched muscles that are crude and blunt, not forged from protein shakes and weight machines. Scars etch his skin in pearly ink. A tattoo of flames-- all fine, swirling lines and soft, muted oranges-- filigrees his left shoulder.

She stands, eyes never leaving his and strips off her pants. She's wearing what she always had considered to be her 'sexiest' underwear, which would be none at all. She hears him rumble low in his throat and his hands are on her calves, as if he couldn't get her back to him fast enough. He guides her, stepping her feet over his shoulders, hands moving up to the backs of her knees. He pushes his fingers there and she sinks down onto the floor, kneeling over his face and she can hardly believe what is about to happen.

She hisses in a breath, eyes rolling back into her skull. She had alway enjoyed oral sex, of course, but men were never as good at it as women, she had found in her albeit limited experience. He was quickly proving to be her first exception to this rule. When she had first started thinking of fucking Max Rockatansky, she couldn't deny that this was number two on a very long list of things she was very eager to try with him. He did not disappoint.

She grabs the sides of his head, rocking her hips reflexively, moaning wantonly. His fingers dig into her thighs, deliciously firm, sparking a bit of pain that left her boneless. She has to lean forward, bracing herself with her hand on the rough wooden floor. She bucks against him as his lips and tongue write glyphs into her flesh that set it aflame, breaking it down into its fundamental compounds before linking them back together again.

Before she can really register what's going on, she trying to push sound through her constricted throat, thighs shaking, fingers digging into his scalp, spine bent like a bow. " _Fuck_ ," She manages as she rides out her climax. "Fuck, _Max_..." She is breathless, a bit delirious and he's laughing between her thighs, still lapping at her like she's the best thing that's ever been on his tongue.

Panting, she pulls herself away from his wonderful mouth and she thinks he looks a bit disappointed and she finds herself wondering if this man would be the death of her.

She moves further down his chest dragging her hands over rigid abdominals, hard nipples. His hands work on her legs, her ribcage, starving for her. His fingers come up to undo the buckles of her arm, clumsy and unpractised, but together they pull it away and she leans down to devour his mouth again. Her scent on his beard, her taste on his tongue, leaves her fucking _shivering_.

She hooks her thumb under the waistband of his pants and boxers and pulls. He shimmies them the rest of the way down and she looks at the long muscles of his legs for a moment, admiring.

"Furiosa," His voice is so deep that she thinks she feels it rather than hears it, and that just fans the fire within her to a new intensity. His tone is heavy with hesitation, uncertainty. She looks at him and there is question in his face, behind the desire, behind the blazing thirst desperate to be slaked.

She leans over him, brushing a gentle hand over his temple. "Fool," she returns as she reaches behind her and takes hold of him. His hips buck and his eyes slam shut. He's thick, hard as a root and she has to steady herself, bite her lip hard enough to regain some sort of composure so she can tear the condom with her teeth and roll it over him.

His hands, white-knuckled on her hips, loosen tellingly, giving her control and she loves it so much she wants to laugh. She slides over him, her whole body draped over him like a snake. His hands move up and down her sides, leaving her flesh rippling with heat. She snatches his mouth in her own, taking his blessing of a bottom lip between her teeth, and slides down on him.

He hisses, gasps, and she's moaning into his shoulder as his heat sears into her like a brand. She moves her hips after a moment, pleasure ricocheting through her like gunfire. She builds up a rhythm, an engine revving up in her belly. She brings her head up to look at him and his eyes spark like spitfire, drinking her in like a spring. She slows down a bit, teasing him, circling her hips, biting hard on his clavicle. His groans seep into her jaw as his mouth raises a trail of bruises over the line of her neck.

She's coming apart at the seams, brain buzzing, swirling in dopamine and animal desire. She lifts her head, presses her brow against his temple, bites the top of his ear, whispers raggedly, "Fuck me."

At first, he just digs his fingers into her ass, a breathless ' _fuck_ ' escaping his lips. He guides her pelvis over his length, slow and torturous and she feels the rough edge of orgasm building within her.

He finally moves himself upwards, bringing her with him. She scratches her nails down his back, trailing angry red lines over the ripples of his trapezoids, her nub pressing into the back of his neck. He shivers and brings his legs up a bit to get leverage. They're pressed together fully and he finds her mouth again as he moves his hips against her own. He fills his palms with her ass and lifts her up and down on him. Her clit is pushed right against his thicket of hair and she gasps, biting down on his lip. He moans and curses into the night against the hot press of their mouths and she is finally coiled and sprung free in orgasm. She shakes within the circle of his arms, thrusting against him helplessly.

He tears himself away from her lips and grunts into her neck as the pistoning of his hips slow and she can't really remember how to breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so long folks (ha, not really). I'm pretty proud of this chapter and am surprisingly happy with my sex writing skills. Never done it before. But these two are just so fucking FUN.
> 
> Hope you enjoy my lovelies. You are why I do what I do. :)


	7. The Interim

They're sticky and hot and breathless.

"Fucking hell," he pants. She presses her forehead to the bridge of his nose, and he feels like he has just been knocked from a galloping horse and only just found his feet again. He's weak, shell-shocked-- fucking _shaking_.

She lays her head on the damp plane of his shoulder, shivering, breathy. He brings his hands up to cup her shoulders. "Didn't think I could come more than once," she observes to him placidly.

He laughs, breathless, brings his lips to her temple. He's unsure of what to do now, in this new world where he has just fucked a woman he was certain he couldn't handle.

They're silent, settling, but she isn't pulling away. "You... uh... want to spend the night?" He finally mutters into the cool bristle of her hair. He knows her to be a woman who wouldn't, but he wants her to know that she could.

She leans back, still close and he can't help but trace his eyes over the curves of her mouth. He watches as one corner quirks up a bit. "I'd like that."

He brings her closer, unable to keep the smile from his face. He shifts her to the side and onto her back on the blanket, slow, gentle. He stands, muffling a groan at the smart in his knee. As he bends to collect their clothes from the floor, she whistles at him and he turns to smirk at her, blush burning his face. Her eyes are glinting with laughter when he passes her her pants and shirt. She takes them with a grateful nod but makes no move to put them on. Instead, she reclines back on her elbows, watching him put his boxers on. Her skin is white as wax in the spill of the moon and her eyes spark like embers. He feels something foreign and electric jolt him to the soles of his feet.

She'll be the death of him, he's sure of it.

He holds up a finger to her, _one minute_.

+++

She watches as he disappears through the trapdoor and lays fully on her back. The sweat is cooling on her skin and gooseflesh blossoms under the chill of a night wind blown in through the lift door.

She tries to navigate in this new plane of being, not sure where to land. She feels light, clumsy, nothing familiar to hold onto. She isn't sure how she felt about staying the night with him. She was used to getting what she wanted and leaving. But she had not quite got what she wanted. She hadn't gotten his arm to rest on, his scent to sleep with, his face to wake up to.

Fear was an emotion that she was not good at manifesting, but something like fear was vibrating through her now.

His face reappears from the trapdoor. He throws two pillows toward her and drags his swag up behind him. He pauses at the top of the ladder, looking at her, taking her in. She feels her lungs empty like a bellows in the face of it.

He strides over to her and his eyes remind her of a savage winter typhoon and he presses his mouth down on her own, fierce, incredulous.

He pulls away swiftly and she's left gasping. "Sorry," he says though he does not look or sound it. Not even a little and her blood is coursing hot like radiation in her veins as she watches him unzip the swag and lay it flat, fluff the pillows.

She hooks her nub over his ribcage as he lays down, his back to her. He drags the blanket over them, laying a heavy arm over her own abbreviated one. She presses her forehead into the back of his neck, breathing the tang of sweat and the spice of his soap. Her smile _hurts_.

+++

It's still dark and cold and a little damp when he wakes.

The first thing he thinks of is breakfast. Because he's hungry and because he knows it will be utterly terrible. His stomach drops unpleasantly at the thought.

"Hey," That cool, healing tone wraps around him, banishing his worries like the weak ghosts they were.

He turns, laying flat on his back. She is on her side, languid and powerful all at once, her shorn hair glistening with starlight. He tells himself not to kiss her, although he is sure she is the most beautiful thing he's ever fucking seen.

She takes his hand, running her fingers over the palm absently. "Breakfast is going to be interesting."

He barks out a derisive, knowing laugh. Always on the same page.

She shrugs. "It's going to happen eventually," she kisses his knuckles and the ease of the gesture lights a fire low in his belly. She reminds him of a big cat, reclined after a good meal. Relaxed and assured that she is the ruler of the world.

He blinks at her, a bit stunned, places a thumb on her bottom lip. She bites it and he actually _growls_.

He watches as surprise lights her face, pleased. She sits up, stretching, and he allows himself to enjoy the sight. "Let's get this over with."

+++

They walk into the kitchen a half hour later, Furiosa with the scarf (identical to her own, thankfully) she had given Max a week before carefully wound around her neck. ("Sorry," he had muttered as he placed it over her head. She had just smirked and drew him in for another kiss that may have ended in a frantic coupling in the kitchen.)

Keep looks at them for all of a whole second before throwing her head back, howling. "I knew it! Second I couldn't find you this morning. Valkyrie is going to lose it!"

"Lose wha--" The woman in question walks in from the back hallway, dressed for riding and looking none too happy at being up so early. Valkyrie looks from Max, now glowering over the range to see that the eggs aren't burning, to Furiosa, who is standing in the middle of the kitchen with her hands on her hips and a long-suffering look on her face.

"Oh fuck..." Valkyrie huffs as Keep cackles in triumph from the sink. Cheedo and Dag come in from the garden, alerted by the racket.

"What's so funny Keep?" Cheedo asks as she places the freshly pulled carrots in the sink.

"The Mad Swagman and Furiosa stayed in the same bed last night, me thinks," Dag answers with wide, searching eyes at Furiosa. She steps a bit closer to her before approaching Max, smelling him a bit before turning to Cheedo and nodding affirmatively.

Keep is still laughing, slapping a palm on her thigh, and Valkyrie is looking from Max to Furiosa, looking both shocked and impressed. Max's neck is beet red and Furiosa can only roll her eyes at her old friend and put a finger to her lips pleadingly. Val nods as the rest of the women filter into the kitchen, weighed down with bags and gear and yawning quietly.

Thankfully, the rest of the morning passes without much issue, as the rest of the crew are more worried about supplies and muster routes than whether or not she had slept with the new jackaroo. Furiosa and Max keep their distance from each other through breakfast and the pre-dawn lineup, lead by Furiosa atop War Rig with mist puffing from her mouth.

With much talk of patience, diligence, and teamwork, they finally set out with dust pluming from their horses' hooves and the sun girding them all in gold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im SO SORRY!!! I have been in the midst of moving, plus the holidays and the end of the semeseter madness and I've just been swamped. Forgive me!
> 
> This is just a shameless filler chapter. Next chapter will be very... Home On The Range, if you will. 
> 
> You are all why this happens. Thank you so much for you continued support!


	8. The Range

It was strange, being in a place with no walls or borders-- no fences or roads. A bright swathe of seamless red waste capped by the jewel of the sky. A land carefully crafted and conquered by the sun-- even the horizon melting into the sky at its behest.

  
Nights were the opposite. The world reduced to the orange halo of fires and the glow of lanterns-- a pin prick of intruders into a shadow kingdom. And once the fires hissed out their deaths, the cosmos would wink itself awake through the dark vault and ferry its ancient light across the sky.

  
He hadn’t been able to truly appreciate it before. Before, he was out here with a dread purpose. Before, he had no real purpose at all.

  
They wake with the sun and cook in the shade. The coats of their horses slowly rust with desert dust and untended cuticles crack with heat. The Vuvalini puff on long pipes and pass honeycomb wrapped in linen. Capable polishes her binoculars and rubs sheep’s fat into her saddle. Toast chews her cud and cleans her guns by lamplight. Dag grins at passing insects and whispers to her silver mare. Keep curses every time she leaves the saddle and calls out the names of every bird they see. Cheedo strokes fetlock and mane and reads poems by the fire. Furiosa floats on the back of her big beast and one time beats him at shooting practice and it’s possible that he is ever so fucked.

  
+++

  
Four days in, they come upon the tree.

  
This wasn’t a mean salt lick trap-- the tree’s gnarled black bones still hiss and spark with recent flame, white steam curling into the sky.

  
“What the--”

  
“Stay here,” Furiosa says, her voice low and steady like a stalking panther. She dismounts, approaching the tree slowly. Max stays reluctantly behind, not assuming for a second that he was somehow beyond the reach of her command, but after a few steps she looks over her shoulder at him and tilts her chin ever so, the gesture unreadable to most.

  
He joins her at the tree and she rubs soot-black fingers together as she looks at him in confusion. “Not lightning,” he offers with a kind of helpless shrug. It’s the only thing he can surmise with all present evidence.

  
She sighs and nods, continuing her circling of the tree, looking for snares, tripwires.

  
“Citadel,” Forthright shouts from atop her horse. She spits to make her point.

  
Furiosa shakes her head, her forehead wrinkled in conflicted certitude. She looks to Max with her hands on her hips and he can only shake his head, equally bewildered. She would know more about Citadel and their antics to be sure, but based on Furiosa’s vacillation he can only guess that this a step she has never seen them take before.

  
He can’t be sure, but he thinks he sees a flash of apprehension on her face before she turns and heads back to her horse. It chills him more than the sight of the smoldering tree.

  
+++

  
The night is still and stifling. The air cools, but no wind rises to stir it up and it makes her skin itch under the baggy shirt she’s wearing. It’s Max’s, but the scent of him is fading.

  
They had not come to each other-- by some strange, wordless agreement that it would only be a distraction. An unprofessional indulgence that could not only cost them the muster, but also the hard-won dynamic of the group.

  
She couldn’t help but think that their precautions were overkill. Most nights she could hear the sighs and groans of Maadie and Vyrie and the soft giggles and purrs of Cheedo and Dag as she sat and scribbled in her journal by lamplight.

  
She sighs, frustrated by her longing to be near him. Five days usually wasn’t long enough between seeing partners for her in most cases. Now, she felt every hour of those five days as heavy as timbers. She couldn’t help but hate herself for it-- just a little.

  
She throws her head back, staring blankly at the ceiling of her tent, trying very hard not to think of how very fucked she was.

  
Her sight swims blankly, for a time, before stilling and focusing on a small, carefully wound stitch just above her, sealed over with a shiny strip of water repellent. She reaches her flesh fingers to it, as if touching his fastidious mending may transfer herself to him-- summon him to her, sitting in his tent across the camp.

  
She doesn’t strictly believe in all the nonsense told by the locals about strange Outback magics and mysteries. She’s too pragmatic a creature, and has too much first-hand experience besides, but she hears the uncertain clearing of a throat and a low, questioning rumble right outside her tent door as her knuckles brush over the stitch.

  
He’s crouching outside and just the _sight_ of him makes her pause. He’s wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, hair going in all directions, eyes a little squinty over the glare of her lantern. He’s gripping a book and a small silver flask. “Uh-- I know that you-- that you don’t really want--”

  
“Shut up,” is all her weary brain could put together in form of greeting as she pulls him in.

  
+++

  
“You’ve never-- never seen that before?”

  
She idly spins her metal camp tumbler atop his knee between forefinger and thumb. He sits, propped up on a spare bed roll as she lounges between his legs, using his thighs as arm rests. A queen reclined upon a litter-- and he’s very okay with it.

  
“I don’t like it,” she finally says, quietly. It’s a redundant statement, but he hears the small relief in the words. Saying it out loud made it real, and real things could be acted upon. Furiosa only dealt in tangibles.

  
“Mm… could the War Boys… you think maybe they're just bored?” He posits.

  
That actually seems to assuage her somewhat as he watches her shoulders twitch downward. She peers over her shoulder at him, looking slightly affronted that he was able to so easily calm her. “That might be it, actually. They’re not exactly the most focused lot…”

  
She still looks unconvinced, but seems to decide that it’s not worth more thought just yet. She takes another swig of her bourbon and turns to kiss the crease of his knee. Thank you, she seems to say, though her gesture is mostly lost though the material of his sweat pants. He smiles just the same.

  
+++

  
He wakes the next morning to two sounds: a hearty cackle that sounds a lot like Keep did the morning him and Furiosa came into the kitchen after their night of fucking in his apartment, and (much closer) a heavy, miserable groan.

  
He coughs, shifting his arm out from under her. It proves to be very difficult, seeing as though Furiosa has seemed to wrap herself around it like a sleepy python. After much growling and grumping, he finally extricates himself and immediately pushes two thumbs into his throbbing knee. Fucking in a tent would probably not be recommended by his old physiotherapist. But, on the other hand, the poor woman had written him off as a lost cause after his third visit… recommendations were only a waste of breath.

  
His knee now calmed, he bends over Furiosa, ostensibly trying to convince herself that she was not foreman of a cattle station and had to spend a long day on horseback in the Outback sun and that she _definitely_ didn’t drink that third whiskey or wake him in the night to fuck him again.

  
After much gentle prodding, him and Furiosa emerge from the same tent, both knowing full well what it could and definitely did imply. Furiosa was positively mutinous, glaring at fast rising sun as if it were personally mocking her. Max followed, fingers steady at the small of her back.

  
Cheedo is the first one they encounter, wringing out her hair next to a tree with a pail of water hanging from it. She hails no good mornings, only gasps and beams like a child behind her fists. Dag, never far from the other, salutes them with a coiled stock whip and a small, knowing smile.

  
Furiosa either does not notice the scrutiny or does not much care for she marches to the cook fire at a fair clip, eyes never straying from the flames. The further they walk, the more genuinely concerned he becomes for the first person to cross the woman today. It could very well be him and he didn’t much like that prospect.

  
Her biker sisters and Capable and Toast are all arrayed around the fire, watching bacon and beans sizzle away as they mend socks and saddles and scarves. There’s a whole flurry of excitement at their arrival that he can’t really take in all at once. Rumors, he’s sure, had spread as sure as a brushfire, but seeing them both emerge at breakfast was clearly the confirmation they all had craved.

  
“You’ve _got_ to be kidding me,” is Toast’s response with crossed arms. Capable looks like she’s very close to achieving the power of levitation. The Vuvalini all laugh heartily and knowingly and he thinks he sees a disappointed Maadie exchange a few notes with the grinning Smith.

  
Furiosa, to her credit, takes it all in stride. He even sees a defeated smirk on her face as Forthright leans in to her and says, “Fine one there, pet.”

  
He can’t say the same about himself though, as Furiosa tramps away to fetch a canteen. The Mothers ply him with food and his face is so very hot he knows he must be red to the roots of his hair. He stumbles with his ‘thank yous’ so much he strongly considers not speaking for the rest of the day-- maybe the rest of his life.

  
Furiosa comes back to save him, a tin plate brimming with food and steaming in the dawn chill. She seats herself next to him on an obliging rock. The rocks are a little too high for true sitting. They’re merely leaning against them and she takes one long, good look at him. He glances at her quickly and a grin spreads over her lips. She knocks her boot against his own, some of her previous fury washed away with a good drink of water and hot food. “No one pulled a gun on you,” she says conversationally through a bite of biscuit. “They must really like you.”

  
He snorts. He’ll take it.

  
+++

  
“Shoulda found at least a head by now…”

  
“Strange fortunes this. What does it mean?”

  
The muttering starts again this night, as they did the past two. Furiosa puffs on a cigarette-- a rare indulgence. She only turned to the comfort of nicotine if things were truly dire. She rubs the pad of her thumb on the filter, staring into the fire. Nine days out, and they had not found a single head of cattle. They had followed the cattle trail that had been found a few weeks ago-- the one into the channel country, but with little luck. The worse of it was Ace, back at the homestead and patrolling the skies, also reported nothing.

  
She feels eyes upon her and she shakes her head, blowing out a stream of smoke through tight lips. “We can only look more. That’s all we can do.”

  
“Aye, but we can’t stay out here forever,” Maadie answers through a thick wad of chew.

  
“What do think we should do, woman? Shrug our shoulders and head back home? There is a bloody mob out here somewhere.” Valkyrie counters with a small growl.

  
“I’ll ask Ace to double his patrols,” Capable says warily, sipping her gin.

  
Max shifts his elbows to his knees, hands hanging. “Could send scout parties out. Preserve... uh, rations, cover more ground.”

  
He looks at her as he says this, though the statement is for the group at large. It was a good idea-- risky, but reasonable in their current predicament.

  
“I don’t like it one bit,” Keep says shaking her head with a scowl. “But the boy’s right, I’d say.”

  
Toast throws her toothpick into the fire. “Citadel is behind this shit, I know it.”

  
The Smith nods in agreement. “Aye girlie you’re right. And if that’s the case, splitting up might just be what they want us to do.”

  
There were some murmurs of agreement throughout the women. Furiosa flicked her cigarette, watching the filter curl and blacken in the flames. “One more day. One more day and if we don’t see a head, we split up.”

  
There are some bitter grumbles mixed with agreeing hums, but the word of the foreman was understood.

  
The next day the only thing they find is dirt and the chalky skull of a dingo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hey there guys!
> 
> Listen, I never ever wanted this to happen! I love, love this story and have no intentions of ever abandoning it. I just had to back away from it for a time. I had other things, fandom and otherwise, that captured my attention. I do apologize for taking so long and disappointing all of you! 
> 
> The good news is is that I have practically all of the rest of this written. That doesn't mean that updates will be expeditious, but they will be regular. 
> 
> Love all of you angels. <3


	9. The Careful Plodding of the Unsure

That night is tense and unhappy. The usual raucous campfire supper is rendered subdued and quiet in the knowledge of what is to come in the morning.

Capable sets off almost immediately after throwing her half eaten meal into the fire and goes to check on the horses. Toast picks at a cuticle while she chews sullenly on a toothpick. Cheedo and Dag have long since disappeared into their tents. The Smith and Vyrie talk in hushed tones just outside of the fire, smoking more than usual. Valkyrie looks blankly into the flames, pushing beans over her plate. Keep strums tunelessly on her ukelele, her heart not in it. Maadie finishes off the last of her gin with Ada, who both talk very little.

The wind is kicking up and Max senses a storm brewing that has little to do with the dark cloud hanging over him and the women. He sighs heavily and looks down at Dog at his feet. She looks at him with a happily lolling tongue, oblivious to the tension that prevails the camp. He smiles weakly, reaching a hand down and scratching her half-ear. He looks to Furiosa, who is holding a long burnt out cigarette between her fingers. He licks his lips, considering for a moment, before grabbing the almost empty bourbon flask and standing up. He offers his hand to her and she takes it, resigned to a sleepless night.

+++

“I need you.”

The wind is howling outside, the tent whipping and snapping at its behest. The sentence, spoken by anyone else to their lover would not be all that outlandish. But from her-- it’s a fucking killshot.

Furiosa was such a good match for him, in so many ways it made him dizzy to think about, but perhaps the best way she matched him so well was precisely because she _didn’t_ need him. Not even a little bit.

The awfully familiar blank buzz of fear pools just between his eyes. She goes on despite his breathless silence and despite the first, hard plops of rain on the tent roof.

“If we’re gonna do this properly… we,” she says heavily, gesturing with two fingers between them, “need to split up. And I need you to watch out for them.” She says all of this so casually. As if she isn’t placing the heaviest load he has had on his shoulders since the fire. For her part, she looks troubled-- not at all satisfied with the way things have transpired to bring them to this very fraught endeavor, but she has that line of determination between her brows that he knows so very well. The manner in which she says all of this-- it’s as if she hasn’t even the smallest doubt that he will accept and (more importantly) succeed.

Lightning sparks the walls of their tent like the phosphorescent glow of the alien spacecraft from the cheesy shows he used to watch as a kid. It washes her worried face in a deathly pallor. He jumps slightly, she doesn’t. And that-- that really is the difference between them, he thinks. She’s steady as stone and he’s as skittish as a kicked dog. She’s looking away from him, worried and contemplative, and he cannot think of anything else but for the fury raging in his chest.

She looks at him finally, long after the rumbling stampede of thunder has fallen away. Her eyes sharpen, honing in on him like a bird of prey spotting a field mouse. She sees right through him, damnit. He knew she would-- somehow. Knew that his heart was pumping so hard and fast that he might as well have presented it to her on a plate, red and raw and her’s for the taking.

He shakes his head, the motion abortive and strange in the wake of her gaze. He feels the icy claws of panic gouge into his back.

She sits up, getting on her knees in front of him. There are so very many things she could say to him right now-- those empty platitudes that long gone friends used for comfort in the wake of one of his attacks, harsh accusations of confirmed fears that he would fail, forced words of confidence.

But instead… instead she does the worst possible thing she could do and it lands in him as good a fresh bullet. “I need you here, Max,” she simply repeats with her palm on the back of his neck and her brow to his own. “I trust you. I need you.”

His eyes slam shut and he bites his lip so hard to keep from screaming he thinks he tastes blood. He slides his fingers to the base of her neck, holding her there for a long while. Finally, he nods as the storm thunders and roils the desert outside.

+++

His eyes shift uneasily in the dawn chill. The sodden ground sucks at their horses hooves, making it slow going, which only serves to set him more on edge. He sits tensely in the saddle, knuckles white on the reins and Maru tosses her head and champs her bit to mimic her rider’s disquiet.

No matter what he does, he simply cannot seem to settle this immense feeling of unease-- only made worse that he is not with her.

He shakes his head, trying to clear out the rising whispers of his ghosts as his eyes rake the horizon.

His group, turns out, is not lead by him, but by Capable, who is as natural of a leader as Max has ever seen. He had been so beyond relieved at this revelation when they saddled up this morning, that he had nearly keeled over. Of course Furiosa wouldn’t send him into the great unknown without a guide. He should have known better.

“Take care of yourself,” she had whispered to him as the sun carved out the horizon with a lip of gold around them. She had held the back of his head in her metal hand, forehead smashed to his own, much like the night before. It was all he could do to seal his hand over the back of her neck and kiss her quickly before pulling away to mind his horse.

It was only after they had separated that he had noticed the Vuvalini partaking in the same gesture in their various farewells. He felt the compliment-- he had been welcomed into Furiosa’s tribe.

Despite their ardent protestations, Dag and Cheedo had been separated. Cheedo was the only person with certifiable medic training in their band-- besides himself, and had been selected by Furiosa for her group. The only problem with this particular decision was that he was quite sure that he had never told Furiosa that he had medical training. This revelation was not only quite confusing to him (why would he not mention such a desirable skill to-- for all intents and purposes-- his fucking boss) but also slightly worrisome. He felt very sure, now, that she must have done a search on him. And, really, why wouldn’t she? She wasn’t the type of person to bring in just anyone out of the goodness of her own heart. He felt very foolish for not thinking of it before.

Dag sits sullen and sniffy atop her little piebald paint mare, trailing the rest of the group. Max could only guess that she had been chosen for his group because, by his estimation, she was the only one amongst them that could play any sort of instrument or hold a tune. It amused Max to think that Furiosa had levied musical talent into her decisions, but it made sense-- being splintered into factions would be stressful enough, without the addition of silent, joyless suppers.

The Smith is with them as well, and Max knew well why that was. She was perhaps the only other person in the country that could out-shoot Furiosa at long distance. She rides to his left, chewing at her empty pipe and patting her big bay gelding.

Maadie had also been picked for this group, and Max knew that Furiosa wanted to pair him with what could only be thought of as his closest ally among the Mothers. Maadie and Max had spent many an evening talking shop about bikes and circa 1970s American muscle cars. She rides easily next to Capable now, talking good naturedly as was her practice, atop her chestnut Quarter Horse.

Toast was was yet another member, ostensibly because she was the one second closest to Dag’s heart after Cheedo. She rides slightly in front of the woman in question, wanting to give her space, but also to lend her supportive presence. Her sunglasses are already over her eyes and her testy gray appaloosa wickers at the mud sticking to her feet.

The most surprising member of the cadre by far, was Valkyrie. She’s sitting tall and fierce on her inky black mare that looked so much like Furiosa’s War Rig right in front of him. He can’t understand why Furiosa would send Valkyrie with them-- her best friend and possibly her most valuable fighter. He wasn’t going to kid himself-- he would not want to be caught in her crosshairs in any clash. He was trying very hard not to think about it.

Three hours crawl slowly through Max’s ever increasing fog of anxiety. The sun beats down on them through the crisp blue sky, any evidence of last night’s storm rapidly vaporizing in the wake of it. The rising, shimmering moisture makes the already oppressive heat skirt the edge of unbearable and only aids in his discomfiture.

+++

They make camp at a stand of scrubby, rough-shod Myalls. The sun melts into the west, pouring marrow-red over the silvery gauze of the world. He hobbles and feeds the horses, their shadows stretching out spindly and strange beside them.

He almost drops the bag of feed he’s hoisting when Valkyrie suddenly appears.

She smiles at him easily, patting her horse and not the least bit concerned with his twitchiness. He recovers himself, after too long a moment, and nods at her as he ties the bag over the snout of Dag’s little paint. Beastie, he thinks his name is.

“Beautiful sunset,” Valkyrie observes as she picks a burr from her horse’s mane. He nods again, going to the next feed bag.

“Has Furiosa ever told you about how she got War Rig?”

Max pauses, shakes his head and turns to Capable’s palomino.

Valkyrie looks wistfully into the fast dying sun and laughs. “She stole him.”

Max looks up at her quickly. He’s more shocked about how little this surprises him, honestly.

The woman seems to glean his understanding because she nods back. “That old bastard used to be a Citadel horse.” She sighs and leans against her mare companionably. “I helped her do it, of course. I’m always getting her into trouble.”

Max hums in a tilted sort of way at this. It’s hard to believe that anyone could cause more trouble than Furiosa, but he also thinks that if anyone was capable of that, it was Valkyrie.

“We trailed them for three days. They were marking cattle trails. Rig was a bastard alright, on account that he was so mistreated.” She pulls out a little pouch of tobacco from the front of her coveralls, divulges a stack of thin rolling papers from her pocket. She wets a long finger and peels a paper off, carefully tucks some tobacco into it, grazes her tongue over the edge and neatly rolls a cigarette. The whole process is so seamless it’s like one motion. She holds it out to him. He shakes his head. She shrugs and lights it up with a Zippo that looks older than she is.

“Snuck up on ‘em in the night. Rig was not too happy about it. Made a fuckin’ racket, he did. Woke every last asshole up in the camp.”

She smiles, a blissful look lighting her face as if she is recalling one of the fondest memories of her life. Something tells him, that she probably is. “But, Furiosa rides like a demon. Got outta there before they even got their boots on.”

Max chuffs a bit at that, assembling a pretty vivid picture of that in his mind. _Yes_ , he thinks, _makes sense_.

Valkyrie is silent for a long while. She leans against her sleepy mare with one boot kicked up on the toe of the other. Max drags a curry comb over the flanks of Maru, who sighs appreciatively. The sun melts behind the shore of the desert and far-off dingoes yap excitedly with the coming of the night.

He rakes his rough fingers through Maru’s dry mane to pull out some of the wind-tossed knots. Tries not to think of their old barn, with the roof that had so many holes and gaps in it that they used to joke that they could just rip the whole damn thing off and it wouldn’t make any difference. Tries not to think of the goats they bought and almost immediately regretted. They had four before the end of it all.

Valkyrie appears next to him and he doesn’t flinch, although he had forgotten she was still here, mingling with the horses, watching the day die.

“Here,” she says, holding out another hand-rolled cigarette. It’s almost indistinguishable from one made in a factory. He relents this time. You don’t turn down someone’s master craftsmanship. She lights it for him. He puffs hesitantly, having not smoked since he was in college. He coughs. She smiles and rolls herself one, leans heavily on one leg and looks at him through a stream of gray smoke. He shifts uncomfortably.

“Furiosa is a fighter,” she says, taking another long drag of her cigarette. “She always fights for what she wants.”

Max looks at her, not knowing why she is telling him this. If you got to know Furiosa even a little bit-- if you were allowed to get even that close-- you would know this about her.

“We had a row, about you,” she says, “I told her she was nuts sending you out alone.”

Max feels an acidic cold rising from the soles of his feet, settling like a storm in his heart. He wants to tell Val, so badly, that she’s wrong, but he was never much good at lying.

He’s silent for a long time, looking at the little divots that the horses hooves have made in the sand. Valkyrie tips the long ash of her cigarette against the heel of her boot, breathes out through her teeth. “My girl has only misplaced her trust once,” she finally says and places a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think she’s liable to do it again.”

He looks up at her, and there’s a mixture of cautious approval and something like warning in her face that makes him swallow, nod. She squeezes her brown fingers into his shoulder and offers him a small smile before flicking her cigarette out and striding away, whistling the whole while. It’s as much of a benediction as it as a death threat.

Max stays with the horses for a long time.

+++

The next morning, there’s a call from Ada on the SAT phone. The signal is garbled and buzzy, and Max can’t make hide nor hair from it, but the look Capable gives him and the others has him on his feet and marching toward the horses in less than a heartbeat.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. So. I have never in my long career as a fic writer, ever written an AU. Of course, this idea took hold of me with the strength of a bear and took off from there. There have been about seven re-writes. I have to say, I really admire those AU writers out there. This is not easy!
> 
> I've done a lot of research for this, so I hope it plays out well. Wirewood and Knife Leaf are plants found in the Outback (specifically Queensland, where this story takes place). The title, 'rangeland' is the Australian term for pasture. "Swagman" is Aussie slang for 'drifter'. A 'swag' is a sleeping bag. If there are any Aussies out there reading this, I would love to hear from you!
> 
> And yeah, this chapter may be a bit confusing, but everything will get set up in time. I don't like dumping a lot of exposition on you guys first thing. 
> 
> This work is un-beta'ed, so I take full responsibility for any mistakes. Enjoy!


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